


Oxford Comma

by Calebski



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Muggle, F/M, Falling in love despite herself Hermione, Jock/nerd trope, student newspaper
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26025529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calebski/pseuds/Calebski
Summary: “And finally, this week’s sports focus is our very own campus hero, Cedric Diggory!” There was a flurry of overlapping ahhs and giggles, and Hermione rolled her eyes. “Granger you’re up.”“Me?” Hermione squeaked.“Yes, you.”“But I don’t know anything about football,” Hermione protested...
Relationships: Cedric Diggory/Hermione Granger
Comments: 127
Kudos: 199





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Greetings dear readers. The first order of business, those of you that have been following me for a little while may have heard me mention I had a Cedric x Hermione fic planned. This is not it, that one is still in a google doc somewhere collecting digital dust. However, when I opened prompts at the end of last year for, I was sent some rather wonderful ones. The below prompt came anonymously on Tumblr and after playing around with it for a good while I wanted to write a little more in the verse than just the one chapter. The prompt was wonderfully specific, but I hope you will forgive me for a few edits I have made (chief among them that this will be set in the UK. No matter how many times I have watched She’s All That, I still don’t think I could write about an American school in anything approaching a convincing manner.) There will be no magic in this story, apart from the type we bring from our imaginations (have some cheese!). I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Anon (via Tumblr): freshman Hermione is part of the uni publication team, and she’s somehow assigned to write for the sports column, so she interviews Cedric Fucking Diggory who’s like soccer prodigy/captain and during the interview, he realises that she barely understands the semantics and technicalities of the game, so he invites her to come to watch him and his team practice. I know this is so specific, but I haven’t stopped thinking about this since you said you’re planning on writing a Hermione/Cedric fic..tysm

Hermione Granger glanced at the clock as she entered the English classroom and was horrified to learn it was only twenty-five past three. She had been hoping to arrive _at least_ five minutes late so she could wind up Justin, but it appeared she was the furthest thing away from late. _She was five minutes early._ It made her look punctual and keen, everything she always wanted to be for every other school endeavour, apart from this one.

Hermione wasn’t an after school club person. One of her earliest school reports, when she had been little more than five, had declared that she was ‘not a joiner’. Hermione had _wholeheartedly_ agreed, and she had been perplexed and a little offended when her teacher at the time had patiently pointed out that she hadn’t meant it as a compliment.

Hermione looked up at the board, and her disdainful gaze lingered on the jaunty chalk lettering declaring she was in the right place for a meeting of the ‘Student Paper’. As if anyone could have forgotten why they had come to the English classroom after school on a Tuesday. The quip sounded good in her mind; it had been less successful two weeks before when she had dared to say it out loud after Justin had arrived. Blaise Zabini had sneered that it wasn’t as if _she_ had anywhere better to be and Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass had tittered and flicked their hair as they shot her scornful looks. Hermione hadn’t responded, mainly because he’d been right. All that had been waiting for her was a microwave lasagne for one. Her parent’s operated extended hours at their practice on a Tuesday and Thursday. Hermione had flipped Blaise off though, her being largely unpopular was not an excuse for him to behave like a dick.

Ten minutes after her entry, Zabini sauntered into the room, wearing his school blazer inside out and nodding in greeting to everyone he cared about. Hermione hated him for arriving at the time she had wanted to.

Hermione would never understand why guys like Zabini did shit like the student paper; it wasn’t as if he needed the credit. From what she had heard, Blaise’s mum had had a fair go at fucking her way through most of the movers and shakers in town. He was hardly going to struggle for work opportunities when he left school. But apparently, the paper needed a style section - even though everyone wore a uniform when they needed to and donned jeans when they didn’t - and as there was only one person that had anything approaching a sartorial eye, it required Blaise Zabini.

After fidgeting in annoyance - mainly at herself - Hermione eventually jumped up onto one of the graffitied to all hell desks and let her feet dangle beneath her. Some of the boys in her year thought it was _hilarious_ that her feet didn’t touch the ground when she did this. From Hermione’s point of view she couldn’t have cared less, and, in any case, if her legs had been long and elegant that would mean she couldn’t pedal them back and forth like she was doing now, and that would have been a real shame. It was a great way to get rid of waste energy.

As more people started to filter in, resplendent in their effortless lateness, Hermione pulled her bag off her shoulder and dropped it onto the desk next to her so she could get out a notebook. She needed something to take notes with, but if she was honest, she could have gotten it out later. Making a show of searching through her bag prevented anyone else from sitting there.

To keep up pretences, Hermione pulled out her leather-bound notebook and then put her hand in the bag almost up to her elbow - looking like a seasoned magician - before she wrapped her fingers around a pen. She pulled on the notebooks elastic and stretched it off the first page, then flicked through to where she was after she had finished the last assignment. The brief report on the inter-school, regional chess club final looked dull even in draft form.

Sadly, print had not elevated it to the dizzying heights of rousing journalism.

Hermione’s fingers idly traced the embossed lettering of her initials on the front cover as she bit her lip and watched the clock tick down to showtime.

Her dad had brought Hermione the notebook as a special gift when she had told him she was joining the paper. While Hermione usually preferred the bog-standard ruled pads she could get for three for a fiver in the village she had taken to bringing the fancy one with her to meetings and using it for all of her story notes.

David Granger had been something of a dreamer back in his day, though you wouldn’t know to look at him now, with his tame hair, neatly ordered clothes, expected suburban home and dental practise to his name. When he’d been at school he’d had a passion for journalism that had caused Grandad Granger a ‘great deal of worry’, but it hadn’t lasted long once he emerged into the ‘real world’. While still in education, her dad had been the Editor of his school newspaper, and if the ample scrapbooks he had of back then were any indication, he still looked back on the time with great fondness.

Reporting for the school paper did not foster anything approaching the same feelings in Hermione. She liked words _of course_ , but she’d always been a bit sniffy about _journalism_ and especially of the ilk that was produced by the paper. But, if she wanted a government job in the future, she needed a resume that was bursting with detail to get into a top tier University.

Not being remotely sporty limited her options considerably. While Hermione enjoyed the science club she had joined almost from the first day of school, they only met once a month due to the chronically understaffed department.

It had made her dad so happy when she had mentioned she _might appl_ y that Hermione knew she couldn’t back out now. She had to suck it up, even if the Editor was the most undeservedly self-important idiot she’d ever had the misfortune of meeting. Considering she knew Draco Malfoy, that was saying something.

Justin Finch-Fletchly was just the sort of overly entitled windbag that Hermione had come to expect to be at her school. Hogwarts, though mainly known for creative arts and sports, had become something of a flagship for the aristocratic offspring of societies _people-you-must-have-heard-of_. The people that were always spoken of at parties like ‘well you simply _must_ know Bunty, her second husband sailed around the world. What a poor chap, all that way and nary a crewman insight. I’m all for sporting achievement, but I can’t imagine going anywhere I couldn’t get a decent poached egg and bloody newspaper in the morning, what what!’

Justin Finch-Fletchly, or ‘ _double F_ ’ as Ron had christened him in their second year, walked around as if his double-barrelled surname somehow made him taller than his rather diminutive stature, and he ruled the school paper with an iron fist. A limp-wristed iron fist, but an iron fist all the same.

Hermione had been in classes with him for her entire school career, and they had clashed on just about every conceivable point. Justin was very firmly in the camp that felt that Hermione should mind her middle-class tongue when she was speaking to her _betters. S_ adly for him, the progressive, left-wing schtick that he was trying to sell as a cobbled-together personality didn’t allow him to say so _out loud_ , which resulted in tension. Hermione had never cared much about it until she joined the paper and therefore had to be under his thumb. With fewer people watching, Justin was far less able to keep his mouth shut around her. Which was probably for the best, Hermione wouldn’t have been able to stop goading him if her life depended on it.

Hermione pulled out her homework planner and spent the next five minutes rather happily adding in the requirements she had picked up for that day. It wasn’t to last.

Justin barrelled into the classroom with all the barely suppressed pomp Hermione had come to expect of him. He forced the door open and greeted the room with a shrill shout and tossed one of the tails of his over-long scarf over his shoulder. He eyed Hermione, sat on the top of the desk at the back while everyone else was in chairs and he huffed out a little snort but otherwise, he said nothing. Justin had long since ceased his usual game of good-naturedly bullying her into compliance, and now he opted to ignore her and her doings until they _expressly_ needed to speak.

Justin sat behind Mr Geddes desk with all the gravity of Caesar sitting before his subjects and pulled out a stack of paper with a typical flourish.

“So boss - what’s on the docket this week?” Colin Creevey asked enthusiastically from his corner of the room. His ever-present camera was perched up on the desk in front of him as if he could be sent dashing off on a photographic emergency at any moment. Justin smiled at Colin in the way most people would look at a labrador puppy.

“Not much, not much,” Justin replied, leafing through his stack as the rest of the room jostled forward.

“I’m thinking about doing a section on winter whites,” Blaise said, as he sauntered in his chair as if he was being shot for GQ.

Justin put a hand on his chest, fingers splayed, and looked at Blaise as if he hung the moon. “Thank you, Blaise, I can _always_ rely on you.”

There was some general chatter about what they called the _stationery list_ , things that needed to appear every week. Pansy Parkinson handled the horoscope, and there had been complaints it had been less than complimentary to Gemini’s for the last few weeks. Or, to put it less softly, it had been brutal. Hermione wondered who had pissed Pansy off. While she didn’t like the girl even the smallest bit, she admired her work. Writing poisonous horoscopes very pointedly at one person on campus had a certain flair.

Mariette Edgecomb ran through the events calendar, and Cho Chang talked about the general announcements that had to run that week before Justin assigned all of the stories he currently had on the list. There were depressingly few. Certainly not enough to convincingly fill the paper.

“Come on people we need ideas,” Justin shouted as he banged his hand on the desk, hard enough to wake up Greg Goyle who only turned up each week to get participation credit. “We need something _big,_ something _salacious_. So far we have the debate team getting to the regional finals of a competition no one cares about and Mr Powell’s retirement. There has to be more going on than that.”

“Cafe serving horse meat in the lasagne?” Daphne asked, and Justin narrowed his gaze.

“Bigger,” he insisted, sitting forward and steepling his fingers on the desk.

“Janitorial team selling weed?” Lee Jordan suggested with a smirk and Justin tsked. It had been a story that had been around probably as long as the school existed. There was hardly likely to be any truth in it. It was some kind of urban legend. But doubtful providence aside, it didn’t stop Lee asking if he could cover it every week.

“ _Bigger,_ ” Justin said again, and Hermione rolled her eyes.

“Student newspapers not that big of a deal?” Hermione muttered under her breath, and Justin’s head snapped in her direction.

“Something to share with the rest of the class, Granger?” he simpered, and Hermione nearly acted on her burning desire to tell him to go fuck himself.

“Nothing,” she managed to reply, and he nodded.

“As I thought.”

After a few more increasingly random story ideas, Justin slumped back in his chair. “It’s like you guys don’t even care about this,” he sighed dramatically before sweeping the room with his gaze. “We are supposed to be a _team._ I can’t carry the weight of you all on my back. Some of you need to start taking some of the strain.”

Hermione managed not to stick her fingers in her mouth to mimic choking. But it was a close won thing. She couldn’t help but feel that the sentiment Justin was attempting to invoke would have been more convincing if _everyone_ in the room wasn’t painfully aware that he would have sold his own grandmother for a chance at the big time.

When no response was forthcoming, Justin rubbed a hand over his face before reaching into his bag. “Well, it’s a good job _I_ am thinking of what to do next; otherwise we wouldn’t have a paper at all.”

After less than five seconds of shuffling, he produced a second piece of paper and waved it harshly in the air till it made a muffled crackling sound. It would probably have been more dramatic if he hadn’t done a very similar thing, last week and the week before. When you joined the paper, you quickly learnt that Justin didn’t really want ideas. He wanted to be in control of everything and admonish you for letting him.

“Right, assignments,” he said as he looked down the list. “The Maths Club has had a rebrand now they’ve finally had a girl join their ranks. They are changing from the Algebros to the Number Ninjas. Goldstein, interview the Captain.”

Hermione snickered to herself and began doodling on the corner of her open page. What would it be for her this week? A chat to the groundsmen about lawn maintenance? A two-line single review? Maybe she wasn’t required for anything at all and turning up this afternoon had been a colossal waste of her time.

“Flooding again in the ladies loos on the second floor. Daphne, my love, go and speak to maintenance and find out what is going on. The faculty are keen for us to dissuade some of the more outlandish conspiracy theories doing the rounds.”

Some third years had gotten it into their heads that there was a ghost in the ladies by the modern textiles section of the art department. Supposedly, the spirit kept flooding the toilets because she was unhappy her crush had left her for an exchange student. Well, at the least the girls had an imagination.

“And finally, this week’s sports focus is our very own campus hero, Cedric Diggory!” There was a flurry of overlapping ahhs and giggles, and Hermione rolled her eyes. “Granger you’re up.”

“Me?” Hermione squeaked.

“Yes, you.”

“But I don’t know anything about football,” Hermione protested, and she wasn’t being hyperbolic. She did her very best to keep as far away from all of that noise as possible, and considering her two best friends - or three, if you counted Ginny - were all affiliated with the school team, it took some doing.

“I suggest you learn,” Justin insisted dismissively, and Hermione realised why he had given her such a wide berth over the last few weeks. He had been planning this. He was going to throw her into something she had no idea about and let her fuck it up and watch everyone turn on her. People _loved_ Cedric Diggory, and any slight against him would not be taken lightly. Hermione wanted to scream.

“Justin, really, wouldn’t it be better if-”

“Are you questioning _my_ authority?” Justin bit out shrilly, “Because this isn’t a democracy, Granger, you don’t want to do the assignment, you can walk out of the door.”

Hermione’s fingers bit into the soft leather of the notebook still in her grasp. It was the only thing stopping her from grabbing her bag and leaving never to return. But she remembered her dad’s enthusiastic responses to everything she had written, and so far all she’d had to show for her term was a few short paragraphs here and there about nothing.

This would be a _full article_ , maybe even a front-page given how Hogwarts treated its little sporting Gods. It wouldn’t be about anything _she_ cared about, but it would be there. Hermione would also get a byline and her name in the paper, properly under her work, not just on the back page where it listed all the contributors. She was typically listed underneath Ron’s mum Molly who helped run off the photocopies.

“Fine,” she managed to hiss out through gritted teeth.

“Adda girl,” Justin said, and Hermione knew if she’d been standing closer, he would have patted her on the head.

_Die in a ditch you pedantic arsehole,_ she retorted in her mind as he smiled down at his paper. He really thought he had won.

Once the rest of the assignments were doled out, Hermione jumped down from the bench and stuffed her papers into her bag. She tried to make it to the door before the rest, but she was stopped in her tracks by Blaise Zabini watching her with amusement.

“Good luck, Granger,” he said without any shred of sincerity. “Don’t fuck it up, will you?”

Hermione pushed past him and was soon out in the corridor. In the five seconds before the door slammed, she heard them all giggling in the classroom.

Hermione bit her lip. Whatever happened, she wasn’t going to let those bastards win.


	2. Chapter Two

The night following the regular student paper meeting, Hermione had a stress dream so severe she woke up in the throes of what felt like a panic attack. Her hands were fisted in her bed covers, and her damp curls were stuck to her forehead in a messy clump. It wasn’t a wholly new experience for her, _Hermione wasn’t exactly known for her breezy personality_ , but she didn’t usually feel this anxious outside of exam season.

When she finally blinked herself awake, Hermione instantly forgot the details of her dream, but there was one image that lingered so strongly it almost felt as if it had been etched into the inside of her eyelids. Hermione could see herself, walking into school the day after her article was published. Everyone stared for what felt like long minutes… until the laughing started.

_Bloody Justin!_

Hermione wasn’t one to be defeated, _especially_ when the cards were stacked against her. She attended a school where she wasn’t expected to do as well as the rest, and yet, she had risen to the top despite her lack of private tutors and the fact her parents didn’t intimately know anyone on the school board. She had achieved all she had without help and on her own terms. She was _determined_ this wouldn’t be any different.

If they wanted her to write an article on a student sports star, that was exactly what she would do. She just had to figure out how.

Hermione got ready quickly and rushed out the door after swiping a piece of buttered toast with a shout over her shoulder to her mum that she would see them later. There wasn’t time to lose if she was going to get everything she needed before her first lesson.

She was heading for the library.

-/-/-/-

Miss Pince seemed somewhat bemused when Hermione signed in and requested to see the school paper archives, but she gave her the key all the same. The outer edge of the large metal keyring had rusted, and Hermione found it strangely comforting. Despite all of Justin’s theatrics about the importance of what they were doing, she was sure she was the first one to call up back copies in months.

As Hermione had expected, the back issues had not been essential enough to be painstakingly digitised and thus viewable on a state of the art machine. Still, their librarian was a woman _deadly serious_ about the importance of her job, and so the lever arch files Hermione found inside the locked up cupboard were immaculately stored.

Hermione pulled down files that covered the last two years and painstakingly searched through until she found all of the previous _sports focus_ articles. It should have been amazing that there were enough athletes to run an article almost weekly, but Hogwarts was a sports school, and people loved their ‘stars’. The student populace lapped up any additional information they could get, no doubt practising for when they could name drop who they went to school with when they were at dreadful dinner parties with equal dreadful guests in the not too distant future.

A whole host of people that worked on the paper, past and present, had taken a turn at writing these articles, and though the styles varied greatly, the subject matter was always handled with evident enthusiasm and respect. They ranged in length dramatically depending on the relative lustre of the chosen subject. While most only got a half-page run, some, like Marcus Flint or Oliver Wood, were deemed worthy of _two whole pages_.

Hermione set aside the ones that were, by her limited estimation, as notable as Cedric, and she made copies of the eight or so articles she was left with and carefully put all of the papers back in their appropriate folders.

Hermione sighed as she looked down on the result of her ‘research’. Each article seemed less emulatable than the last. She discounted the one on Draco Malfoy and tucked it at the back of the pile. While she had no doubt it would have been of use, even seeing his name made her feel vaguely ill. The fact that had been written by Daphne Greengrass was enough to be sure it would thoroughly unsettle her stomach.

Hermione flicked through the rest with growing despondency. Cho Chang had written a great article on Angelica Johnson late last year. Hermione seemed to remember that Angelica was being scouted for a spot on an international women’s team at the time. Though exciting, it wasn’t exactly unusual. A lot of the Hogwarts football players went on to be in the Premier League, and their coaching system was believed to be second to none. None of that intel was going to make her article any better, Hermione could have pulled it from the prospectus and anyway, everyone already knew.

Hermione’s own sports knowledge was incredibly limited, and her experience of the players was even less impressive. Harry and Ron had played for the reserve team for a few years with hopes to make it to the _big_ team next year, but this lot was a different kettle of fish.

Hermione looked down at the smiling picture of Angelica and briefly considered asking Cho for some pointers. Then she remembered that Cho and Cedric had broken up last year. Hermione bit her lip. She didn’t know Cho well enough to know if it was a sensitive issue or not, so it was probably best to err on the side of caution. The last thing she needed was to piss off one of the only people on the paper who didn’t treat her with open hostility.

Hermione considered asking her friends for some help, but she couldn’t bring herself too. Ron would make himself sick from laughing, and Harry would ask her why she didn’t just quit the paper if she hated it so much, a question she didn’t have an answer for at that moment.

Hermione picked up the next article, a relatively lighthearted take on Adrian Pucey, and her eyes fell on a career highlights table that had been included. _Maybe it was worth putting in hers as well?_ It would take up space if nothing else. Hermione groaned and shuffled her newly acquired research into her bag.

_Why was nothing ever simple?_

* * *

By two in the afternoon, Hermione caught herself idly considering going down to the AV department to ask for any football affiliated documentaries they might have. She knew she was putting off the inevitable then. The problem was Hermione never did _anything_ unprepared. Unfortunately, there was _no way_ of getting herself more ready for the interview ahead of time, and as such, the most crucial part of her task was setting up a time to ‘interview’ Cedric Diggory.

Even as she resolved to get it out of the way, Hermione debated leaving it to the following morning, but she knew she didn’t have time. If there was one thing she understood, it was a deadline.

After her last lesson of the day, Hermione waved off her friends with a flimsy excuse they were all too tired to call her on and crossed over the large, tarmacked netball pitches to go to the sports hall.

While Hogwarts didn’t precisely operate with a ‘terf policy’ taken straight from a teen movie, this part of the grounds was considered mainly the athletes' domain. Most of the first teams were required to train after classes at least twice a week, and because of that they all had larger than the average lockers, and they were all housed at the back of the sports hall, near the changing rooms and a relatively small training gym.

Hermione tried to keep to the sides and largely out of view of the people hanging around. She had never felt more out of place. She could count on one hand the number of times she had been in this direction since she had started at Hogwarts, and three of those had been when she was entrusted to send a note to another teacher. Hermione held her bag across her front like some kind of satchel-shield and ignored the curious eyes of the lingering upperclassman.

Earlier, Hermione had managed to find an afterschool timetable that was pinned to one of the endless notice boards in the dated-looking reception area. The first football team had a training session instead of last class that day, and Hermione knew it was her best hope of ‘bumping’ into Cedric. She just wished they didn’t hold their meetings in the changing rooms of all places. _Surely a classroom would have been more appropriate?_ And, less embarrassing for her.

Hermione continued to drag her feet as the sports hall loomed large in front of her. She began to feel rather silly about taking this approach. If she had thought about it, it would have been worth a few laughs from her friends to get one of them to speak to Cedric on her behalf. He knew Harry well enough to nod at in corridors, which was more than could be said for herself.

Hermione didn’t _know_ Cedric Diggory, although she knew of him. Everybody did. She had never spoken to him. More than just being a year above, they would just never have run in the same crowds. Hermione was severe, not particularly well-liked, and not very concerned about it. So much of school came down to your reputation, which Hermione had deduced was primarily made up of who you knew, how much money you had and how good looking you were.

Sadly, Hermione was something of a failure in all of those camps. She had friends, but they were the type of people that the elite of the school didn’t care much for, for one reason or another. By usual standards, Hermione considered her family to be affluent, but usual standards didn’t matter much at Hogwarts where a few of the most privileged at the school had their own private jets. As for her looks, well, she had never tried to give it too much thought, though she understood from some of the jabs directed at her from time to time she wasn’t thought of much in that department either.

Cedric was _pretty_ in the way that teenagers supposedly looked if you watched American television. He had a strong jaw, perfect hair and pearly white teeth that could have advertised toothpaste. He was also, according to all who knew him, both incredibly popular and yet somehow, not an arsehole. Hermione would believe it when she saw it. She’d met her fair share of good looking, silver-tongued princes since she came to the school and so far they had all disappointed her.

Hermione stopped outside the boys changing room and found herself staring at the rather innocuous door. It seemed strange that she couldn’t hear any noise from within.

Hermione wiggled her feet impatiently and tried to control the desire to run away and forget the whole thing. The meeting was going to be _so awkward,_ and Finch-Fletchy knew it. _The bastard_. Typically when the paper reached out to get student agreement for this kind of thing, they set up an initial meeting with the ‘journalist’ that would be writing it up. Somehow this courtesy had been ‘overlooked’ on the very occasion that Hermione had been roped in.

With no better option in mind, Hermione pulled out her homework planner, trying to look as if she wasn’t ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. _Try to look like you have a reason to be here,_ she told herself as she filled in box after box for the upcoming week and tried not to look at her watch.

Eventually, and yet still before she was ready, the heavy door in front of her swung open and Hermione jumped in surprise. Another player she recognised but didn’t know, Cassius Warrington, emerged into the corridor before stopping short at the sight of her and tilting his head to the side. The back of Hermione’s neck prickled under his curious gaze.

“Who you waiting for?” he asked as he shouldered his backpack over his damp shirt. The ends of his dark curls were leaving blotches on his shoulders. Hermione tried to remind herself that she had a legitimate reason for being there as his eyes danced. There was no _need_ for her to feel embarrassed.

“Cedric Diggory,” she managed to stutter out. “It’s for-”

Cassius cut her off with a wink. “No need to trouble yourself, _Princess_ , we _all know_ what it’s for.”

_Princess?_ Hermione flushed to the roots of her hair as Cassius pushed open the door behind him and shouted into the beyond.

“Oye, Ced! One of your little fan club is out here again.”

“No, really,” Hermione tried to protest, but Cassius shrugged and headed off down the corridor letting the door slam closed behind him.

Hermione slumped against the wall and hit her head against her planner instead of screaming after Cassius that he had made a mistake. She got the distinct impression, Cassius didn’t care.

Before she could give herself a concussion, the door (that Hermione was really beginning to hate), opened again. This time Cedric himself appeared, still pulling his shirt down over his stomach and with hair even wetter than Cassius’ had been. Where Cassius had regarded her with amused curiosity, Cedric stared with evident confusion.

“Do we…” he began uncertainly, and Hermione tried to sort her mind out and clear this all up before it could get even more awkward.

“I’m not here for….” she said, but then Hermione ran out of words. What exactly was it that she _wasn’t_ there for? What did girls wait here to see him for? His _autograph_ , a date.

“I’ve been tasked with interviewing you for the paper,” she forced out before this encounter could truly descend into chaos. “I’m Hermione… Hermione Granger. Year Ten.”

Cedric leant back against the wall opposite with a trademark sparkly grin. “ _Tasked with?”_ He asked, with a laugh in his voice. _“_ You sure you didn’t volunteer?”

Hermione’s eyes narrowed. “No, I didn’t. Even if I _had_ wanted to, _which I assure you I didn’t_ , that’s not how it works.”

Cedric crossed his arms and dropped his bag to the floor. Hermione didn’t like the look of him settling in. “I thought Finch-Fletchley was sending Cho?”

Hermione shrugged, unsure if he was disappointed. She could hardly take it as a blow to her ego; she didn’t _want_ to be there either. “Sorry,” she said indifferently. “I couldn’t possibly pass comment on the inner workings of double… of _Justin’s_ mind. He assigned me last night. That’s as much as I know.”

_Never a truer word spoken._

“Cool,” Cedric replied in an unaffected way. “How long do you think you’ll need?”

_That was a bloody good question_. Hermione had never thought about how long it might take to interview someone for something like this, or anything at all for that matter. “About an hour?” she said, more hesitantly than she would have liked. But surely it couldn’t take longer than that? “When are you free?”

Cedric clucked his tongue as if thinking and Hermione waited, semi patiently, while he chewed it over. _Get out your schedule_ , her mind was screeching, but she managed not to let the words take flight. This had already been bad enough as first meetings go. Although, arguing with someone she had just met wasn’t exactly an unheard of occurrence.

“Tomorrow,” Cedric said eventually. “After school. It's the last training session of the week. You should come along, see me in action.”

_No!_

“The point,” Hermione said, as patiently as she could manage, “is being able to _interview_ you, I’m hardly likely to achieve that watching you on a pitch a hundred metres away.”

“Are you saying you want to be closer?”

Hermione stomped her foot. “That’s not what I meant.”

Cedric shrugged. “If the article is about my prowess as a captain, then surely you need to see me in all my glory. As no matches are coming up, a training session will have to do. I’m trying to be helpful, you know, for the article.”

“I erm,” Hermione replied, floundering. “I think it might be better to just have a quick chat in person.”

Cedric shook his head, but his smile never left his face. “Football is a visceral thing, and you're going to have to see with your own eyes if you’re gonna believe how I play.”

“But I-”

“Tomorrow, four o’clock on the main pitch. Don’t be late Hermione Granger.”

Then he was gone. Hermione stayed staring blankly ahead while she tried to figure out where that had gone so wrong, but then she could hear voices behind the newly loathed door. She scampered off before she could get waylaid by another self-important, ridiculously tall and worryingly damp athlete.


	3. Chapter Three

The next day, despite every conceivable excuse she had considered, Hermione bundled up in warm clothing and sat in the _almost_ deserted stands. Almost, as she was not the only one that had come along to watch the first team practise. There were huddles of lower years animatedly discussing the play and a single group of upperclassmen girls, three of whom were wearing jackets from the team kits, discussing the game - or at least those playing it - no less animatedly.

Hermione felt even more ridiculous sitting by herself, though it was hardly the first time she had been to the stands. Ron and Harry dragged her there often enough, but it was the first time she had made it there after school.

She longed for the deep, soothing heat of the library as she tugged the cuffs of her cardigan over her fingers and drummed her pen on the notebook rested against her legs. She was, to all intents and purposes, poised and ready, she just didn’t know _what_ to say. The team had already been on the floodlit pitch when she arrived, and after an hour she had seen more star jumps and laps than she could count, but she still had no idea what she was supposed to be observing and her feet were going numb.

The team spent the majority of their time on drills, running here and there and practising passing balls to each other. Hermione eventually rested her chin on her hand as she watched _nothing_ happen. From the distance of the stands, she could barely make out the individual players though she could spot Cedric. She told herself it was because of the easily distinguishable band he had around his upper arm. Hermione didn’t think she did the best job of sounding convincing, even in her own head, her thoughts were an awkward jumble when it came to Cedric Diggory.

The Captain split his time between partaking in the drills himself, observing the other players and talking to the coaches.

Hermione had been doodling tiny spider webs in the corner of her page for more than ten minutes when she finally caught onto something. She’d been staring at the field almost absently by that point, but she noticed one player repeatedly attempting a dribbling motion through cones only to lose the ball in the middle of the course each and every time. Hermione waited for Cedric to come over and lose his temper. She’d heard tales of how Oliver Wood could lose himself to ‘passionate encouragement’ from time to time. Or as Ron had referred to it, ‘flip his lid’.

But it didn’t happen. After what must have been the tenth attempt, Cedric stepped away from his observer’s position and walked the player back to the start of the course. He put his hand on the shorter boy’s shoulder and said something Hermione wouldn’t have a hope of hearing from the distance and then pointed at a few things on the ground. Then, Cedric turned and called another player forward, who nodded after receiving a command and then moved to demonstrate the move, perfectly navigating the cones and finishing with the ball neatly under his boot at the end.

Cedric never took his eyes off the demonstration, but he spoke the whole time, right into the struggling player’s ear. As soon as it was finished, Hermione could see his mouth move and then thumped the boy on the back before clearly asking him to attempt it again.

The player did, and he succeeded. He wasn’t as smooth as Hermione had seen others be, but he got to the end of the cones, and he still had the ball. Hermione could see his smile from her place on the stands. It was returned by Cedric who shouted something and then he went back to focusing on the rest of the field.

Hermione drummed her pen on the pad again. The words weren’t there yet, but there was something, an angle, a skeleton of what she wanted to say was beginning to form in her mind.

-/-/-/-

Hermione shoved her pad in her bag and crunched her fingers to get some life back in them. She manoeuvred a few things around, so her Discman was loaded and in a grabbable place and then walked to the bottom of the stands and considered the quickest route to the bus stop.

“Not coming over to say goodbye?”

Hermione hesitated when she heard his voice. She hadn’t expected Cedric to acknowledge her when there were so many people about. Out of the corner of her eye, she the girls she had spotted earlier making their way down to the pitch, and there were shouts of plans for meeting up later at a place Hermione had never heard of.

“I assumed you would be doing… whatever it is you do once you finish training,” she replied vaguely as she turned to face him. The players had filed off the pitch five minutes before, and Hermione hadn’t considered he would want to speak to her afterwards.

Cedric smirked. It made his warm, open, happy face look unexpectedly sinful. “What’s the matter, Granger? Frightened even to say that I might be _showering_?”

Hermione flushed, both with embarrassment and anger. She really _hadn’t_ been thinking _anything_ like that. None of the boys she knew bothered to shower when they were going straight home, and she didn’t like the implication that she was so ridiculously puritanical. He could’t have known it would hit so close to some of the things the girls in her year said about her. So what if she was a virgin that couldn’t drive? Was that really all there was to the existence of a sixteen-year-old, cars and penises?

Cedric grinned wider when he saw her pink cheek and stepped forward and bopped her nose.

Hermione blinked in surprise and then took a giant step back, wobbling as she nearly unsettled herself in her haste. “Really, are you five years old?”

“You’re the one who just had their nose bopped,” Cedric protested. “Surely that makes _you_ the more likely toddler in this scenario. Anyway, you’re just so,” he gestured towards her with broad sweeping movements, “cute and pocket-sized.”

Hermione’s eyes narrowed. “I am a perfectly normal height. Thank you.”

She was, even her dad had confirmed as much. It wasn’t _her_ fault that a school preferred by athletes meant everyone around her was freakishly tall. Last Halloween, Ron had dressed as a pirate and asked Hermione if she would like to come as the parrot on his shoulder. She’d dressed as a bird alright, and used the surprisingly sharp beak of the costume to peck his face. They hadn’t spoken for a week after that. Though Fred and George, Ron’s brother’s, had declared it to be one of the best things they had ever seen.

Seemingly realising he was on thin ice, Cedric changed tack. “So, did you make any _interesting_ observations?” he asked and nodded his head towards her bag. Hermione thought about the empty pages she had been staring at and was surprised by a twinge of guilt.

“Yes,” she replied, lying heartily. “It was very… illuminating. I have to go home now.” Hermione turned to depart, but Cedric jogged after her and grabbed her arm.

“I’ll drive you,” he offered readily. “Just wait five minutes, yeah? I need to grab my bag.”

“I’m fine on the bus,” Hermione insisted.

“I don’t doubt it for a moment, but _I_ can’t get in my car and drive past you at the bus stop without feeling like a selfish prick. _I_ asked you to stay late, remember?”

Hermione wanted to protest again, but it was getting colder than she had imagined it would be and she didn’t have a coat. Plus, the longer she stood here, talking to Cedric, the more attention they were getting, and it was either get into his car or start digging a hole under her feet in the hopes that the ground would be encouraged to open up and swallow her.

“Fine,” she agreed with bad grace. “I’ll wait here.”

-/-/-/-

_Another first_ , Hermione thought to herself as she waited at the side of the stands for Cedric to come back. She noticed a few of the girls glancing at her curiously when they left, and Cassius Warrington waggled his eyebrows when he slipped past. It was enough to make her want to run away. Hermione tried to mentally calculate how long it would take her to get to the bus stop, and whether it was likely Cedric would catch up with her before she got there. The determining factor seemed to be that she would have to walk _through_ the car park, which would be where Cedric was heading anyway, and he would no doubt see her and then be able to cover the distance without a problem. _Damn his long legs!_

“You’re still here,” Cedric said, clearly amused as he jumped to a stop next to her.

Hermione flushed, suddenly unsure. _Should she have gone home? Had he only been joking?_

“You told me to wait,” she said, her words coming out harsher than she intended but if Cedric noticed he didn’t say anything.

“I did, but I thought you would scurry off as soon as my back was turned. Call it a hunch Hermione, but you don’t seem very obedient.”

Hermione idly wondered if she would have preferred him to have been teasing her about the lift, rather than being seen through so quickly but she didn’t have to dwell long as Cedric bounded off in the direction of the car park and she had no choice, or at least that’s what she told herself, but to follow.

“It’s nice, huh?” Cedric said as they approached a vehicle she would have described as silver, new looking and large.

Cedric looked proud of it, Hermione realised, and while she thought it was somewhat preposterous for a schoolboy to be driving something that looked like it could have handled going off-road in the Amazon, she shrugged. “If you like that sort of thing.”

Cedric snorted and opened the passenger door so she could get in before throwing his kit bag in the back. Hermione relaxed and only startled a little when Cedric jumped in himself and clicked a button. The chill in her legs dissipated.

“Heated seats,” he offered with that smirk again, and Hermione resisted the urge to tell him they always made her feel like she’d wet herself.

“I would expect nothing less,” she muttered instead, and the light in Cedric’s eyes was visible even in the growing dark.

_Bloody posh boy_

-/-/-/-

The drive home was uneventful, and thankfully, given the fact they hardly knew each other, relatively short. Hermione punctuated Cedric’s attempt at conversation with directions to her home, and as friendly as he was, she couldn’t shake the idea of herself as similar to a lost kitten he had somehow come across and was doing a good deed in caring for before he returned to his normal life.

Hermione stifled her sigh of relief when his posh car slowed and then came to a stop outside her rather uninviting, dark looking house.

“No one home?” he asked as he bent his neck to look out of her window. His arm moved on the rest they shared in the middle of the car, his elbow touching hers in a way that made her feel small and unsure. Hermione unclipped her seat belt and fumbled for her bag.

“My parents work late a couple of times a week,” she explained and Cedric’s brow furrowed.

“You okay, all on your own?”

Hermione bristled at his show of concern; she _wasn’t a child_. “I’m fine,” she said through gritted teeth, and Cedric sat back in his, admittedly extremely comfortable car seat.

If anything, he seemed amused by her outburst. “I was just asking, Hermione. You know, making conversation and all that? Aren’t you supposed to be makin _g me_ feel at ease, so I’m ready to give you the inside scoop?”

Hermione released a long breath. “I know,” she agreed, though she wasn’t exactly known for her calming or friendly demeanour she recognised he had a point. “Thank you for the ride home.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, grinning at her in a way, Hermione felt like he was laughing at her. “Thank you for coming to practice. I know you hated it.”

Hermione considered protesting it with some lie, but her shoulders slumped. “It was _really_ long.”

Cedric laughed. “Imagine how long it feels when you’re spending most of that time running.”

A motorbike sped past the car, shooting red light then white over both of them and Cedric blinked before jingling the keys in his ignition. “Look, I’ll catch up with you tomorrow, yeah? About the interview.”

Hermione tried not to smile at his hopeful puppy dog expression; she really did. But, despite her ever-present cynicism, she had to admit, the consensus about Cedric seemed to be right. He was just a nice human being. Nicer than her at any rate.

“Sure,” she agreed. “Thanks for the ride, it was… it was a lot better than the bus.”

“Thank you for confirming the superiority of my vehicle,” he said with mock seriousness as Hermione climbed out of the car with her keys between her fingers as she walked up the front path.

Once she opened the door, Hermione turned on the porch light and sagged in something approaching bliss as she felt warmth enveloping her. Her mother had apparently remembered to turn their heating on the timer.

She made a quick dinner, sorted out her due homework stack, made a rough draft on a new essay and then braided her hair back before getting into pyjamas.

It was late, _really late_ by the time her parents got back, and Hermione barely flinched in bed as she heard the front door open. It was then, disturned from sleep that her mind reminded her of a piece of information she had apparently been ignoring.

Cedric Diggory, Captain of the first football team and all-around Hogwarts Champion hadn’t driven away until long after her front door was closed.


	4. Chapter Four

The next morning, Hermione woke up after a much more satisfying sleep. The screeching of her alarm seemed especially obnoxious as it disturbed her peace, and she aggressively clicked at her phone before pulling the handset under the covers and wincing as the harsh light assaulted her bleary eyes.

Hermione snuggled under her blankets as she scrolled through new message alerts. Most were from Harry, who had sent her a series of questions - long after midnight - about their latest maths homework. His last one said he had figured it out, Hermione assumed that by that point he must have realised what the time was.

There was another one from Luna, sent very early, with a brief description of her idea for the upcoming Science Fair. As expected, it was both entirely out of the box and exceptionally ingenious. Hermione couldn’t wait to see Mr Snape’s face when he went to Luna’s table to evaluate her project. If she could pull this off, Luna was guaranteed to get a top ranking, just like every other year she had taken part. To Hermione, Luna was a genius, even though most of their teachers complained that the waif-like blonde didn’t pay any attention in class.

Hermione smiled to herself as she brushed her teeth and decided against doing anything with her hair. By the time she got to school the wind, that she could already hear whipping at the windows, would have undone anything she had attempted, and then it really would be unsalvageable.

Hermione got herself dressed, packed her school bag and ran through her timetable for the day. Everything was as it should have been. She was prepared and ready, and yet, in the middle of her tummy, she felt this gurgling unsettled feeling. She wasn’t delusional enough to pretend she didn’t know what was causing it. So, Hermione resolved to put Cedric Diggory and his kindness to his teammates, his crooked grin and his lingering in cars, out of her mind. However, that was easier said than done, considering she still had to interview him this week.

Once she made it downstairs, Hermione had enough time left over to check her emails on her dad’s laptop while having some toast. After deleting all of her accumulated spam and skimming some of the academic paper titles she had been sent, she found herself staring at an empty search bar, absentmindedly watching the cursor flash in time with her breathing.

She could put Cedric to the back of her mind; _after the article_ , Hermione reasoned with herself.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, and Hermione contemplated. She could hear her parents moving around in the house, getting ready for their own day. It was probably telling that she was listening in to see if anyone was likely to see what she was doing, but Hermione didn’t allow herself to reflect too deeply.

She’d already looked up Cedric in the library, and it only seemed _reasonable_ to Google him as well. Hermione imagined it was what any _real_ journalist would do.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she quickly typed his name and then hit the return button. The results page appeared less than a second later. Hermione tried not to linger on the image search running in a banner along the top. Two rows of relaxed, confident smiles and scruffy-yet-put-together-hair shot from every conceivable angle was too much for that early in the morning.

There weren’t many web results. There were links to his social media pages, but as they weren’t ‘friends’ she knew there would only be basic information on display. The tiny number wasn’t exactly a surprise, though Cedric showed a lot of promise he was still a schoolboy. _For now_. Hermione imagined in a couple of years, there would be _hundreds_ more results, and no doubt many of them would feature interviews he had done with real professionals in national publications. There would probably be ample people searching for details of him at the breakfast tables too—girls just like her, only with less legitimate reasons to hide behind.

It seemed weird to think of how untouchable he would be then.

It wasn’t as if he was in her reach now.

The first two results Hermione clicked were brief excerpts in county papers. Little more than a couple of lines where his name appeared amongst speculation on ‘players of the future’.

The last link was from the local free paper and an article from a good while ago. Hermione read the headline twice before skimming the first few sentences and then glancing again at the picture. She couldn’t believe it. Cedric had _saved a dog from drowning_ when he was… Hermione rechecked the date… seven! He’d been _seven years old_.

The grinning ‘baby’ Cedric was standing by a lake holding his dog in his arms - a massive labrador type thing. Cedric looked straight at the camera with an open expression and an adorable gap in his now perfect teeth.

A bubble of laughter escaped Hermione’s lips, and instinctively, she clamped her fingers over her face in case her mum came in from the next room and threatened to have her committed. There was no way she would be able to explain _why_ she was laughing. It was just so… Cedric.

Hermione took one last look at the article before closing the laptop lid and chewing her toast.

You couldn’t make this shit up.

* * *

Hermione’s usual route to stop at her locker before her Friday morning physics class took her past the school admin office and it was outside the large perspex counter that she found herself hesitating.

She wasn’t one for impulsive decisions, but then again, she wasn’t one for attending after school football practises or letting popular boys drop her home and both of those things had happened this week.

The counter was empty, and a glance through the scratched up glass told her no one was inside. Hermione wasn’t surprised, Miss Umbridge, the _loathful_ school administration manager, was rumoured to be having an affair with the head caretaker, Mr Filch. They often had breakfast together in what he called his ‘office’ that in reality was little more than a broom cupboard that housed his desk and a mouth-eaten bed for his mangy cat.

Hermione bit her lip and checked both sides of the corridor before putting her hand on the doorknob. If she got caught, she would be in _real_ trouble, and entirely at the mercy of Umbridge, a woman she was convinced hated the mere sight of a student. Hermione felt the cold metal bite against her palm and told herself that if it were locked, she would take it as a sign and walk away.

The brass gave way instantly, and Hermione walked inside.

It had occurred to her that morning that there was _one more_ source of information on Cedric that she had previously overlooked. It was not a source that was _strictly_ at Hermione’s disposal, but it was one she could make use of if she got her hands on it. If she was nothing else, Hermione was always completely thorough in her research.

In the small room that Hermione had never entered before was Cedric’s school record.

She located the shelf she needed quickly, irked beyond belief that Umbridge was _competent_ despite her chronic lousy mood, and the irrepressible need to interrupt before you could get to the end of the sentence. Hermione found the relevant file and pulled it out of its comfortable home.

She hadn’t expected it to be that easy. It had been a tickle in her mind when she had first thought of it, an ‘if she could’ type of scenario. It was different now she was holding the file in her hands. Hermione gripped it in her fingers, feeling it’s weight. She had seen her own file once before, and she knew how they were organised. There was a cover sheet on the front; it was amended every year with updated grades and class details.

The rest of the file would tell her a lot more than that, but, despite having already broken a considerable number of rules, Hermione wasn’t tempted to pry further. Lots of things appeared in these innocuous-looking folders, details of absences, notes from meetings with the school counsellors - things that were _none_ of her business. She just wanted to get a picture of Cedric’s academic performance so she could counterbalance the sporting achievements she would be talking about. She didn’t want to know all of his secrets. At least, not this way.

Hermione opened the file and quickly glanced down the page before flicking it shut and setting it back in its place. His grades were... _Annoyingly_ good. She had to get going. The longer she stayed there, the more likely she would be caught.

Hermione got back into the corridor, managing to close the door behind her without being seen, and as she walked past a few milling students, her heart rate began to drop back to normal levels. But even as her breathing slowed the feeling in her tummy worsened. There was a churning sensation that made her feel nauseous. Guilt, she supposed. She _really_ shouldn’t have done that.

Hermione walked up the corridor and told herself the only things she would learn now were from Cedric himself; there was to be no more digging.

* * *

Despite her early science lesson, where Mr Snape would no doubt spring an unwanted test on them, the rest of Hermione’s day was relatively light. She resolved to use the downtime in less intense classes to brush up on the list of questions she had started putting together for the interview. She knew most people would have been looser with their approach; they would have let themselves be guided by what the _subject_ said and then followed their lead, making sure they covered off a few salient points. But Hermione wasn’t like that. She _knew_ she wouldn’t feel confident without a good structure put in place ahead of time And that was before she even thought about the logistics of just _how_ she was even going to find Cedric and schedule some time.

However, all of her thinking (obsessively worrying) was for nought when she finally escaped the admin corridor and turned the corner to find... _Cedric._ He was leaning against her locker with his legs kicked out in front of him and his determined gaze fixed on a trigonometry textbook. It was jarring to see him so definitely in _her space_. It wasn’t like he didn’t belong, _Cedric belonged everywhere_ , not like her infiltrating the sports hall and feeling like a pair of knitted mittens amongst silk gloves.

Cedric looked more put together this morning, his uniformed shirt was freshly ironed, and his hair was quiffed in that _just-so_ way that so many of the younger years tried, and usually failed, to replicate. It was a bit of a shock to see him like that, given the last two times she had seen him had been post-shower and then post running around a football pitch. Cedric looked more like he usually did, but then, Hermione had never really paid that much attention before.

She approached him cautiously, with a flair of irritation that she couldn’t quite tamp down. _Why did he always get to be cool and collected?_ Not for the first time in her life, Hermione wished her stature was larger; it would certainly help when she wanted to appear intimidating.

Cedric looked up as her footsteps got closer, and his neutral expression transformed into a warm, welcoming grin. It was unsettlingly affecting.

“Good morning, Hermione,” he greeted brightly, and Hermione dropped her bag at her feet.

“What are _you_ doing _here_?”

“Good morning to you too, Cedric,” he replied mockingly, “ _so lovely_ to see you again.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “ _Morning_ , but really, what are you doing here?”

“I can see why they send you for the interviews,” Cedric quipped as he swung his backpack onto his chest. He pulled open the top to put his book away and then drummed his fingers on the zip. “Not one to let things go, are you?”

Hermione pushed some of her curls off her face just for something to do with her hands and tried to conceal how awkward she felt.

Cedric tossed his bag back onto his shoulder in a fluid movement that spoke of a resounding peace within himself, and stepped away from her locker. He was close enough to make it apparent just how much he towered over her. He’d had moved off the wall and yet was now even more in her way.

“We need to set a time, and as it was technically my fault we haven’t already done so, I thought I would do the _gentlemanly_ thing and find you today.”

Part of Hermione was exhaustingly relieved, and she wanted to say so. However, the other part of her, still addled from his sudden appearance, had apparently decided she wanted to ask him where he got his aftershave from, so she could buy enough to take a bath in.

The balance of power had never been in her favour, not in this dynamic, and yet she’d had enough surprise at her disposal to knock him off his game so far. He’d not been expecting her to pop up after school, and he’d not been expecting her to stay for the full practice.

She’d had a chance to prepare herself for their interactions before, but not now.

“How do you know where my locker is?” Hermione eventually said, and she was grateful that her voice didn’t wobble.

“I asked Fred Weasley,” Cedric said. His smile dimmed and he rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’ve… I’ve seen you around him... a bit.”

“Oh,” Hermione replied blankly. She hoped Cedric _hadn’t_ been watching when Fred had been trying to deposit her in a bin last week after she’d made a snarky remark about his new jumper. Surely Cedric would find such behaviour… _unprofessional_?

“I suppose,” Cedric said, brightening considerably, “that I _could_ have lingered outside the girls changing rooms, I saw you have PE last lesson, but I thought Mrs Hooch might frown on that.”

Hermione flushed at his pointed reminder of just _where_ she had sought him out the first time and wondered if she would ever live it down. It was bad enough dealing with Cedric but Cassius Warrington walking around the school thinking she was either a deranged fan-girl or a bit of a perv was excruciatingly depressing.

“I didn’t know where else to go, okay? Can you please stop bringing it up?”

Cedric laughed in that way he had that made the hair on the back of Hermione’s neck stand up. Even though she _knew_ he was laughing _at_ her, she didn’t feel like his good humour was at her expense. His laughter was inclusive in that way, and kind.

Hermione huffed even though her heart wasn’t in it and dug around into her pocket until she found her locker key. She brandished it at Cedric in a jabbing motion. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” he said with faux-earnestness before side-stepping out of her way with a dramatic flourish.

Hermione opened her locker and moved around the books, lightening the load in her bag and only putting back the ones she needed for the morning.

“So the interview,” Cedric began again while Hermione still had her head in her locker. She was glad she had removed the shelf at the end of the previous term; otherwise, she would have collided with it when she startled. “We still need to arrange a time.”

“Whose fault is that?” Hermione thoughtlessly snapped before wincing when she heard her tone echo back to her from inside the metal box. “Sorry,” she muttered, not quite daring to look Cedric in the eye. She was being a brat, and she knew it, but he made her feel all jumbled up and unsure, it wasn’t something she was used to - that she didn’t wholly dislike the feeling was even more disconcerting.

His fingers appeared from the other side of the locker door, and then he pulled it back, revealing one of his eyes, the high bone in his cheek and the slight stubble that lined his jaw. They stared at each other for a moment - her looking up at the left-hand side of his face - until the silence got so heavy Hermione felt she _had_ to fill it. She stood back from her locker and pulled the door out of Cedric’s fingers, shutting it noisily.

“When works for you?” she asked, doing her best to sound interested and polite.

Cedric brushed a hand through the front of his hair. He messed up a wave and yet somehow still managed to make it look better overall. “Well my diary is full today, so you’ll have to meet me tomorrow.”

His tone was confident, as ever, but he toed the ground with the front of his shoe and shifted his weight to his other leg. It was odd. Cedric wasn’t a fidgeter. Though he wasn’t known for keeping still, his frantic movement was usually purposeful.

“Tomorrow,” Hermione parroted blankly, and Cedric’s brow pinched.

“Yes?” he questioned as his head tilted to the side, regarding her curiously.

“Saturday?” Hermione pressed again, searching his face. She _couldn’t_ have understood him correctly. Cedric wanted to meet up _at the weekend_ , with her, to do something for school, _with her_.

“Yes, _Saturday_ ,” Cedric confirmed, clearly not picking up on the turmoil discombobulating Hermione. “It’s the day that follows Friday. We can go for lunch. I’m buying.”

“Of course, you are,” Hermione managed to mutter. She was too stunned to offer anything smarter. “Where?”

“Soya? You know it?”

“Erm… yes,” Hermione confirmed. She _did_ know it. Soya was a large restaurant in the centre of town that had been built a few years before. It had a massive glass frontage built up of what seemed like a million coloured shards. It was architecturally edgy in a way that had delighted and disgusted local residents in equal measure. Hermione had been there a few times, it was a bit… _nice_ for an everyday hang out, but they’d gone there for Ron’s birthday the year before. He’d moaned about the food and the international drinks.

“You like Asian food?” Cedric asked, and Hermione nodded, feeling a burning need to exit the conversation. She’d got what she needed, now she needed time to process how she was going to do this.

“Great,” he said and then looked in the direction of the clock above the maths classroom at the other end of the corridor. “Well, I’ll see you there then. 12.30?”

“Sure,” Hermione managed to utter as she fiddled with her sleeve.

After that, Cedric sauntered off, and Hermione was left standing in the corridor, watching him go, not quite being able to take it in. She knew she had to get to her lesson, the first bell was sure to ring soon, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember the topic they were going to be covering off. She usually spent the ten minutes before each class running through the chapter notes she had pre-read. But it didn’t seem like that would happen this morning.

She was startled by a hand on her arm and then Ron’s little sister Ginny appeared, with her red hair floating around her as she danced about.

“What the hell was _that_?” she all but yelled as she grabbed Hermione’s bag and then gripped her hand, pulling her along the corridor.

“Oh,” Hermione replied, still in a sort of daze. “You saw that?”

“I saw you with _Cedric Diggory_ , but whatever “that” is, you need to tell me.”

“I’m interviewing him for the school paper,” Hermione replied, she was flushed now, she could feel the heat of her cheeks, and she was beginning to comprehend the full weight of her embarrassment. It was ridiculous that one interaction with a boy could make her feel so, _so_ … whatever she felt. So what if he was attractive? She didn’t even know him, and she had a job to do.

“Okay, well cover that off later,” Ginny insisted impatiently, “but why was he leaning against the locker and then towering over you?”

“We were setting up a time to meet,” Hermione replied quietly, grabbing her bag back off Ginny and pulling it onto her shoulder.

“It looked like _more_ than that.”

_Did it?_ Hermione thought about the question, but she didn’t ask it. In one way there was nothing she would have liked more than someone else’s input on her interaction with Cedric, in another she was convinced it was best to keep it to herself.

“He looked pretty pleased with himself when he walked off,” Ginny observed, and Hermione rolled her eyes even though her lips stretched into a smile.

“Cedric is _always_ pleased with himself.”

Ginny grinned. “Well, you’d know more than me,” she said, and then she moved her hand to grip Hermione’s upper arm. “Come on. You can get me up to speed on the way to class.”

“You’re not even going in the same direction as me,” Hermione protested, which was, as usual, as pointless as yelling at the tide.

“I’m _sure_ it’ll be worth being ten minutes late to hear this.”


	5. Chapter Five

Hermione didn’t often feel ridiculous. Generally speaking, there was little occasion for her to feel embarrassed. This was not because she was a paragon of poise and virtue, in fact, the reality was very much the opposite, but Hermione tended to avoid situations where it was likely she would end up humiliated. Her mother often told her that she took herself far too seriously, and Hermione agreed, at least, she did in private. But she steered clear of certain situations all the same. Hermione didn’t like to get things wrong or appear in any way out of her depth. As a consequence, she rarely took part in anything where she wasn’t already confident about making a good showing.

Hermione was feeling a little ridiculous that morning.

On Friday, Ginny had nagged the whole way to her morning class, and then intermittently throughout the remainder of the day. Her redhaired friend managed to keep herself quiet in front of the boys, but Hermione saw it was something of an effort on Ginny’s part. And then, as soon as Ron and Harry disappeared, she started up again.

Hermione had gone home to what she hoped would be something approaching peace. Then Ginny had started sending her text messages. Somehow there were still things she hadn’t had time to say.

Ginny was emphatic that Cedric had _intentions_ that amounted to more than happily agreeing to be an interview subject. Hermione had scoffed and rolled her eyes. She had snorted and huffed. She had protested and attempted to ignore. But, try as she might, Ginny’s insistence, backed up by reasonable arguments, were insidious. The more Hermione mulled it over, the more she could find herself accepting that there was _some_ plausibility to Ginny’s inferences. Yet, like a threateningly black cloud, uncertainty lingered.

Hermione realised she was not a creature that enjoyed risks. She liked things to be well ordered, predictable and routine. It was why she found people so difficult. In science or maths, the world could be broken down into certain predictable events. If you introduced chemical A to chemical B, you would get reaction C. You could hypothesis, with reasonable certainty, what was going to happen. Social interactions were nothing like that.

So, Hermione decided to ignore logic and facts - little good they had ever done her in such situations - and opted to follow a much less reliable guide. She chose to ignore Ginny and what anyone else might have said and do what she _wanted_ to.

When she woke up that morning, Hermione left her hair down and used a special spray before drying it so that it retained some of its wild shape. She dragged some shimmer across her eyes with the pads of her fingers, smudging and mussing it up until it didn’t look too studied. Hermione picked a coloured lip balm instead of vaseline and sprayed some perfume against her wrists and pulse points.

Hermione found herself for the first time in a long time, opening herself up to ridicule, and to potentially getting something wrong.

When she regarded herself in the mirror, she tried to tell herself that the overall effect was subtle, _barely there_. Yet the makeup felt _obvious_ and _heavy_ on her face. From the moment she applied it to her skin, all Hermione wanted to do was scrub it off, but she didn’t let herself.

More than almost anything else, she was _terrified_ of being accused of ‘making an effort’.

Hermione had done an excellent job of keeping herself occupied that morning - she certainly had enough homework to do - and had left late enough to ensure that - even with a nervous energy infused, comically fast walk - she would still get to the restaurant bang on time.

_It’s just lunch_ , she told herself for the four hundredth time as she eyed her reflection in a shop front. _It’s only a convenient place to meet that won’t mess up his plans for the rest of the day. He has to eat, after all._

Hermione sighed. She had almost come to terms with the idea that she was meeting Cedric over the weekend, she just hadn’t expected it to be so _public_. Cedric asking her by her locker and the location he chose. It was all so unfamiliar and frankly, staggering.

There was a tingling in the back of her mind. A remote alarm that was highlighting her worry that this might all be some horrible trick. Hermione kept getting glimpses of herself turning up to the restaurant, glittery eyeshadow and all, only to find the whole football team there, ready to laugh at her.

Hermione did her best to shut those thoughts away. Cedric wasn’t _like that,_ she told herself sternly. He was popular enough to be a complete dick and get away with it if he wanted to, and he was attractive enough that most people wouldn’t care either way. Yet, Cedric had always done his best to make her feel welcome. He _deserved_ the benefit of the doubt. Somehow, Hermione had to find a way to do that without driving herself mad in the process.

Trust didn’t come easy for her, much like friends hadn’t. The few around her Hermione would have considered ‘her people’ had been hard-won and yet, even amongst those few, there were things she kept to herself. Hermione had spent a lot of her childhood on her own, keeping her own council and these habits, bad as they might have been, died hard.

When Hermione arrived at the restaurant, no doubt setting a PB for her timing, Cedric was already waiting outside. He was slouched against a wall lined with fake foliage, making him look less intimidatingly tall than he usually did - and yet still like something out of a magazine. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, and it was almost odd to see him without his football jumper draped across his shoulders, advertising his athletic prowess and social status. Hermione had seen a few players wear them at the weekends before, so she knew it was done. She was weirdly relieved that Cedric wasn’t the type. Instead, he was in a thick, cream, cable knit jumper that somehow managed to stretch around his rather impressive upper arms without looking like he was taxing the stitching every time he flexed his hands.

When he heard her approach, he pushed off the wall in a rustle of plastic leaves and turned to face her with his signature smile lighting up his face ( _75% pure joy, 15% knowing what he looked like in a mirror and a 10% hint that there was more to him than just being Hogwarts’ Mr Nice’_ ).

“Here you are,” he greeted warmly, and Hermione looked up at him. Heels would have been way too much for her to risk wearing, but in ballet flats rather than her more robust school shoes she felt tiny next to him.

“How did you know it was me?” she asked as she pulled her backpack further up her shoulder. Then she stepped back out of ‘grabbing range’ as Cedric instinctively reached forward to take it from her.

“I didn’t. I’ve been greeting everyone who passes like that,” Cedric replied winningly before shrugging and holding up his hands in defeat when Hermione once again moved the - admittedly rather heavy - bag out of his reach.

“I’m sure you’ve made quite an impression.”

“Are you?” he asked, catching her off guard and Hermione felt a flush creeping up her cheeks. “Shall we go in?”

Cedric gestured towards the door and fell into step beside her. Hermione felt oddly conscious of her walk as they entered the restaurant. It wasn’t something she had ever thought of before, and now she could barely stop thinking about if her stride was slightly atypical or maybe she was pigeon footed?

“I wondered what you’d look like in your normal clothes,” Cedric said as they stood in the queue to be seated. Hermione looked down at her simple jumper and jeans. Her knitwear was white, and high on the neck with oversized sleeves that ended just beyond her elbow. Despite the cool tone of her jumper contrasting with the warmth of Cedric’s, they looked sort of matched.

“Worried I was a closet goth or something?” Hermione asked archly, and Cedric shook his head as his eyes crinkled.

“You don’t seem like the… _all black_ type,” he admitted with a laugh. “You look… you look nice.”

Hermione’s arms itched and tingled, and she shuffled to move her bag again. This time, when Cedric reached over to take it off her shoulder - his warm fingers brushing against her shoulder - _oh so briefly_ \- she let him take its weight.

“Thank you, so do you,” she offered in a polite, quiet voice.

“Oh, I know,” Cedric replied with a wink, and it broke through Hermione’s growing reserve, unfreezing her limbs and allowing her to roll her eyes.

“Come on. I reserved a table.”

Following Cedric through the scattered tables in the open dining room gave Hermione what she would consider a reasonably good idea of what it must be like to follow him on a football pitch. He walked with purpose and obvious confidence, his head was up straight, and his shoulders were open and relaxed. It made him look taller than he was, which was saying something.

When they were shown to their table, a smallish unassuming square right by the front window, Hermione ordered a Coke while she sat down and reached for her bag to get out her pad and pens before they could come back with the menus.

“All business,” Cedric observed nodding to her small stationery pile, as she pulled out a piece of card with her revised questions. Hermione cringed as she glanced down at her highlighters. She supposed she did look a bit like the overprepared kid on the first day of school.

“Sorry,” she offered, more woodenly than she would have liked, but Cedric waved her off.

“It’s fine, I know that’s why we’re here,” he said gently, though his eyes betrayed that he wasn’t feeling as _neutral_ as his expression was trying to suggest. Hermione opened her pad and fumbled for a blank page. Then, when the drinks and menus arrived, she hastily ordered something she didn’t think would be too difficult to eat. That felt imperative, considering she was by a window overlooking a busy street, wearing white and sitting across from one of the most beautiful people in existence.

Cedric seemed to know what he wanted to have before he ordered and yet the waitress still fussed over him in an attempt to ‘help him’ make the decision. Cedric fussed with his hair as she carried on listing out possible accompaniments that she must have ‘forgotten’ to offer Hermione, and with every wave and clench of his hand, the front of his dark blond locks became more and more rumpled.

Ginny had _begged_ her to find out if Cedric used a sea-salt spray. Hermione had burst out laughing at the thought of ever voicing the question. She also had a sneaking suspicion that if she were able to confirm such a thing, Ginny would begin terrorising Harry with suggestions to use the same on his hopeless head of hair.

“I’m kinda intrigued by what you have to ask me,” Cedric said when the waitress had finally disappeared off to the kitchen with a little sigh.

Despite the levity in his tone, Hermione felt herself pale. She _really_ hated doing stuff she felt unprepared for, and no amount of rewrites or research, above board or otherwise, had made her feel better about this task.

“Are you okay?” Cedric asked as his head tilted to the side. He had a straw in his mouth - for some reason he had asked for a strawberry milkshake - and the plastic pushed against the fullness of his bottom lip, making it appear even…

_Jesus Hermione, get a handle on yourself._

“Yes, it’s just… I should probably let you know they’ve never asked me to do this before, and I…”

“It’ll be fine,” Cedric insisted, slurping his thick drink up the straw in a manner Hermione would have considered obnoxious if she didn’t expect he was doing it deliberately to needle her.

“You say that with such confidence,” Hermione quipped.

“Well, aren’t these things really about the subject matter?” Cedric said with a shrug. “You’re interviewing _me_ , and I happen to be pretty great. What could go wrong?”

“Ha,” Hermione replied shortly. She’d intended it to be a sarcastic little huffed out noise, but she could feel a full smile pulling up the sides of her mouth. She looked back down at her paper before she could humiliate herself completely.

“Ready?”

“For whatever you’ve got to throw at me,” Cedric agreed, leaning back in his chair and stretching his legs out under the table. Hermione couldn’t see or feel them, but she _knew_ they were getting closer and invading her space.

“Why football?” Hermione asked, taking a deep breath and uncapping her pen.

“How do you mean?” Cedric replied as a small pinch appeared in his full brow.

“Why pick _that_ sport?” Hermione clarified. “Hogwarts is known best for _team sports_ , but there’s also a pretty good athletics department. Or it could have been rugby or cricket…”

“Oh, I see,” Cedric replied, taking another loud slurping gulp of his drink. She was going to mock him horribly for ordering that in such a nice place, once they’d gotten all this out of the way.

“Well, I tried a lot of different sports when I was younger. Though never rugby, I don’t really have the build.” Cedric idly gestured to himself as if he imagined Hermione could look at him and easily understand why that would be the case. _Was she supposed to agree or was this some kind of test?_ She pressed her teeth into her lip to stop herself from asking.

“I did cricket for a bit and swimming and even a bit of golf once. Football was the only one that stuck. The more I did it, the better I got. And I like working in a team. I used to be a pretty good runner, and that training comes in handy on the pitch, but it was too in your own head for me to enjoy it. I like the camaraderie and the shared accomplishment too much to compete on my own.”

“Was it important to you to make captain?”

“Yes,” Cedric replied immediately, “and before you go getting any _knowing_ looks on your face, I’m _not_ an egotistical prick.”

Hermione stifled a laugh. “I didn’t get any looks on my face.”

Cedric tsked. “Only because I stopped you in time.”

“Maybe,” she conceded with a small smile and waved her hand to encourage him to continue.

“Anyway,” Cedric resumed, giving her a mock glare. It was apparently difficult to do while sucking on a straw. “It was important to me because I’d set that up as my goal. Being captain of the first team had been my ambition since the fourth week I came to Hogwarts. It’s about more than being the best player; you have to understand the game and the team. You have to be able to make decisions and have a group of your peers respect you. I’d done the work, so it was important to me to have the recognition.”

Hermione nodded and scribbled in a not very neat way to make sure she captured the essence of what he shared. She suddenly wished she’d thought to bring along a voice recorder. It was fine taking notes, but Hermione was worried she wouldn’t be able to sum things up in the elegant, passionate way Cedric managed to. The more he talked, the more she felt like she understood. Sure, sports were never going to be her thing, but drives and goal settings were. Suddenly, there felt like there was more common ground between them than she had been expecting.

“Can you make sure I don’t sound like a knob when I say things like that? I don’t fancy this being quoted back at me at every practice for the rest of my school career.”

Hermione finished her sentence and tapped the pad with the top of her pen. “You’re doing a pretty good job of that yourself. There’s nothing wrong with setting yourself goals and being happy that you achieve them.”

“If you say so,” Cedric replied with a scoff. “Though, by your own admittance, you don’t have much experience in witnessing the dynamic between… oh… Jesus,” Cedric said, suddenly trailing off as his eyes widened, focusing on a point over Hermione’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry just… _shit_ … incoming.”

Hermione heard the door open, and she turned around in her seat as a cacophony of voices drifted towards their table. There was a middle-aged man by the door, and he definitely didn’t look the type to find himself in an upmarket Asian eatery on a Saturday afternoon. The man waved off the waitress that scurried over to help him and instead made a beeline for their table, bumping into - thankfully empty - chairs in his haste.

Hermione looked back at Cedric for some sort of explanation, but he had gone uncharacteristically rigid in his seat. His jaw was set in a tense line, and his eyes were tight as if he was bracing himself.

Hermione glanced back at the seemingly affable man who had now managed to knock some cutlery off a nearby table and was apologising profusely to the lady dining on her own that he had disturbed. His hair was on the longer side, for someone of their parent’s generation, and his glasses were askew in a way that made Hermione think of Harry. He was wearing a beaten up Barbour jacket that might have once been forest green, and he had a backpack slung over his shoulder as well as a few tatty, and overly full, plastic bags in his grip.

“Cedric,” he boomed in greeting when he finally reached them. “Fancy seeing _you_ here.”

“Hi,” Cedric replied warmly, if a little bashfully before stretching an arm in Hermione’s direction. “Dad, this is Hermione Granger. Hermione this is my Dad, Amos Diggory.”

Cedric smiled bashfully, mouthing a quick ‘sorry’ as Amos turned his full attention to her. He loomed in a way she found very familiar though his eyes had more crinkle than his sons.

“Oh hello there, Hermione, was it? Lovely to meet you.” He glanced down at the paper and pens all over the table and grinned. “Working lunch, is it? I’m not a bit surprised. Cedric takes his school work _very_ seriously.”

“Not quite, Dad,” Cedric corrected with apparent reluctance. “Hermione works on the school paper. She’s… interviewing me.”

Hermione’s eyebrows disappeared into her hairline as Cedric mumbled. Though, despite how intently she was looking at him, he was able to ignore it as he seemed very interested in his previously discarded straw.

“Is she?” Amos replied, before appraising Hermione more thoughtfully. “Why didn’t you mention this before Ced?”

“Sorry, it erm… it must have slipped my mind.”

Hermione watched Cedric as he blatantly lied to his father. His posture remained as stiff as it had been since the moment he must have spied him outside. She hadn’t thought that Cedric, with his open manner and teasing nature, _could_ be embarrassed; he seemed like the type that would face down total humiliation with a shrug. Yet, he was clearly uncomfortable now.

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you Hermione, a real pleasure,” Amos said with enthusiasm, putting down his carrier bags to shake her hand vigorously. “If there is anything else you want to know you should come and ask me.”

“I’ll consider that Mr Diggory,” Hermione said kindly even as Cedric made a choking sound.

“You _should_. Cedric is a real prodigy, and _so modest_ he’ll hardly tell you all the things he’s achieved without coaxing. Since the death of his mother, he’s been unbelievable. So many other young boys would have fallen apart, but not my Cedric, he’s been a rock, a real rock.”

The tops of Cedric’s ears went pink and Hermione, for the first time in her life, wished she could do something that would pull all of the attention to herself to spare him what he must have been feeling. Amos Diggory continued, clearly not sensing, or maybe not fully understanding his son’s discomfort.

“Well, I best be off, better let you get on with it, I’m sure you’re working to a deadline.”

Cedric nodded and smiled, as ever, but to Hermione, who felt like she was getting used to his various happy expressions, it seemed a little forced.

“I’m on my way to the angling club, fish as you know Ced, they wait for no man. But I saw you through the window, and I had to pop in.”

“Thanks Dad,” Cedric replied. “Have a good meeting.”

“Good luck with your article, young lady,” Amos said to Hermione in a way she thought was probably supposed to be encouraging.

“I’ll be sure to save you a copy, Mr Diggory.”

“Most kind, Hermione, most kind.”

He left with as much noise, and fuss as he arrived with and Hermione waved back when he stopped outside the window and zealously waved his hands at them - as much as he was able, weighed down by what was probably bait - before disappearing up the street.

It was quiet at the table for a short while. Hermione thought about raising the questions again, to break the silence, but it didn’t seem like the right move. And so she left Cedric to fiddle with his spoon until their plates arrived and he reached for the sauces.

“I’m sorry he’s a bit… well, he…”

“Loves you,” Hermione interjected, as softly as she was capable. She tried for the kind of gentle smile she had seen others use, and she felt a tremendous sense of relief, and a touch of pride when Cedric’s shoulders relaxed.

“Yeah, maybe a little too much though. He can be,” Cedric rubbed at his jaw. “He doesn’t mean it, it’s just him and me, and it’s… sometimes he can be embarrassing.”

Hermione scoffed. “My mum once came into school to do a presentation on _oral_ health.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Cedric challenged though there was a telltale glimmer in his eyes that gave away his amusement.

Hermione looked at him sternly. “If it wasn’t bad enough that she _continually_ used the word _oral_ , in front of a classroom of fourteen-year-olds, halfway through she realised she’d forgotten her props, so she made me come to the front of the class and bare my teeth like some horse she was hoping to sell at auction.”

“I can’t believe I’ve never heard about that,” Cedric said with a laugh and then twirled his folk to gather up a load of his ramen.

“Me neither,” Hermione huffed. “Ron reenacted it in the cafeteria for three days straight. I was contemplating poisoning his Lucozade until his sister got him to pack it in.”

“At least you don’t play a sport. My dad comes to _all_ the games. His cheering can be a bit OTT.”

“I’m sure he means well. He’s proud of you,” Hermione insisted. She meant it, even though the idea of it had her inwardly cringing. She had been brought up by parents who were relatively hands-off in such circumstances, which suited all three of them very well.

“He had t-shirts printed, with my name and number on the back,” Cedric replied drolly. “The school doesn’t sell _merchandise_ for the student teams, so he _made_ it. He wore them to every game for a whole term before…. Before my mum convinced him to stop.”

The cheerful atmosphere faded away, and Hermione fiddled with her napkin.

“I’m sorry about your mum,” she said earnestly and hoped he could see how sincere she felt.

Hermione remembered hearing about it at the time, it was two years ago now, or something like it. Breast cancer, they’d found it late and by the time the diagnosis was confirmed, it was a case of keeping her comfortable. Cedric had taken four weeks off school when she’d passed, and his team had closed ranks around him.

“Thanks,” Cedric replied though he kept looking down at his bowl, idly twisting noodles around his fork.

Hermione dipped a salmon roll into a ramekin of soy and thought about her mum. Her mum’s sister, her auntie Steph, had died twelve years ago, so long that Hermione could barely remember her. Hermione had often wondered if the reason she’d never had a sibling was down to her mother’s grief at losing hers. She spoke about her sometimes, wistfully in quiet words that still held so much pain. Her mother often said that the hardest thing about it was that no one talked about Steph anymore. They did it to try and spare feelings, but it just made her feel more gone.

Hermione moved her papers to the side of her place setting and rearranged her plate. “What was she like?” she asked softly. “Your mum.”

Even though he wasn’t looking directly at her, Hermione could tell that the smile that overtook Cedric’s face was a genuine one.

“She was… graceful,” he said at last. “She’d been mad on dance when she was younger and dad always said she moved like Ginger Rogers even when she was just doing the washing up. She was warm and very supportive. Always told us how much she loved us, even when we didn’t deserve it, especially then, even. She was amazing.”

“She sounds nice,” Hermione replied faintly, feeling touched that he would share so much. Cedric had never looked younger or more vulnerable than he did in that moment.

“Sometimes,” he said, clearing his throat. “I wonder if I’m misremembering, making her better or just _more_ than she was.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?” Hermione asked, furrowing her brow.

“No… but, I’d rather… I want the memory of her that I carry with me to be as _real_ as possible. Just like she was. The nicer she seems, the more infallible… it makes her seem like someone that was never here, someone I dreamed up.”

“That makes sense,” Hermione offered, mainly because she didn’t know what else to say. She hadn’t known Cedric’s mother, though it seemed likely that she was every bit as lovely as he said. He’d clearly been brought up with good manners, his love for teasing and a touch of arrogance aside.

“How do you want to be remembered?” Cedric asked suddenly, and Hermione rubbed at her clavicle.

“I thought I was supposed to be asking the big questions,” she replied. She’d hoped for levity, but she wasn’t sure she’d managed it. The conversation was too deep for that.

“Indulge my curiosity,” Cedric encouraged, and Hermione put down her chopsticks. It was hard enough to concentrate on eating so that she didn’t miss her mouth while talking to him. She’d be pushing rice into her cheek for sure if she had to focus on her answers too.

“I’d like people to say that I did some good in the world,” she said eventually, feeling exposed. It was an expression she had used before though not to great effect. It made Ron and Harry roll their eyes, and Luna and Neville look at her like she was a well-meaning, yet misguided, idealist.

“Noble,” Cedric observed with a proud, soft expression that made Hermione want to tug on the bit of her jumper that came up around her neck. Though whether just as a nervous fiddle, or a genuine attempt to hide inside her knitwear, she wasn’t sure.

“I wouldn’t mind if they recalled my memory with a few less _rough edges_ though, if we’re being really honest.”

“Rough edges?” Cedric protested sarcastically. “ _Whatever_ do you mean?”

“Oh, haha,” Hermione said dryly, and then threw her napkin at him. “I have been _nothing_ but pleasant to you.”

“Maybe,” Cedric agreed, catching the flying cloth out of the air with ease. “But that rather depends on your definition of pleasant. Which I think might be slightly different from mine.”

Hermione huffed, and Cedric hid his smile behind his fork.

“You’re not that hard to read,” he observed, though he dropped his voice as if he was sharing a secret. “And you get prickly when you’re uncomfortable. It wasn’t difficult to grasp that you would have preferred to be _anywhere else_ in the world than looking for me the other day.”

Hermione’s arms crossed over her chest defensively. Whether or not the action also covered a splash of soy that she had just dropped on herself was purely coincidental.

“I was standing outside the football team’s _locker room_ \- a place wholly outside of my comfort zone.”

“So you say,” Cedric replied with a smirk.

“Careful,” Hermione bit out through her teeth as she narrowed her eyes. “I’ve run out of _soft things_ to throw at you.”

Cedric lifted his hands in surrender, and Hermione went back to working her way through her neatly ordered dish. Though she pushed a couple of highlighters to the edge of the table. Just in case she needed a projectile at short notice.

“What about you? How do you want to be remembered?” she asked.

“Are you asking for the article,” Cedric questioned, pushing his bowl away and starting on the impressive pile of sides he’d ordered. “Or for yourself?”

Hermione nearly choked on an excellent piece of sashimi but managed to cover it with a cough. Her fingers clacked her chopsticks together, and she focused on the noise for a few moments before she made herself answer.

“For me,” she said at last. “I’d like to know.”

Cedric ruffled his hair and popped a gyoza into his mouth. Hermione wondered if it even touched the sides.

“As some who did his best, who was kind when he could be, and who loved his family always.”

Hermione’s teeth pressed into her bottom lip. “I think your’s might be nobler than mine.”

The solemn atmosphere developing around them was cut through again when the simpering waitress arrived to ask how they, or rather, how _Cedric_ , enjoyed their meal. As much as Hermione was irked by the interruption, she was grateful for it too. The relief was like opening a window on a stuffy day, and it gave her the time to breathe again. Cedric ordered them some more drinks and Hermione ordered her thoughts.

“Back to the questions?”

“Of course,” she replied, her eyes darting down the page to where they had left off. They hadn’t gotten very far. “You’ll let me know if they…”

“If they… what?”

“Sound… a bit… stupid?”

“I’m not sure you’re capable of sounding stupid.”

Hermione smiled and fidgeted in her seat. She caught the eye of a lady who was looking in their direction, and it threw her off for a moment. She’d gotten used to sitting inside the little bubble they had drawn around themselves. Suddenly the outside world came rushing to the forefront of her mind. She was once again conscious of the rest of the diners, and their position in front of the window. If Cedric’s dad had spotted him so easily, it stood to reason that others might too.

She twirled her pen in her fingers and took a deep, calming breath. “How do you balance the demands of your school schedule with the training and prep required to be a successful team captain?”

Cedric chewed thoughtfully. “Planning, I suppose. Everyone has a lot on their plate at Hogwarts, even if they don’t have sports on their roster. Concessions are made on both sides so that the high-level athletes can do well in both areas. It’s a balancing act.”

Hermione nodded thoughtfully, scribbling quickly. She was distracted by footfalls outside on the street, and then she dragged her eyes back to the page.

“Where do you want your career to go when you finish school?”

Cedric sighed and leant back further in his chair. “I’ll keep that one vague if that’s okay? I’m still weighing up a lot of options, and I haven’t given firm answers to a lot of people. My revealing it in the school paper is not likely to go down well with my coach.”

“Of course,” Hermione agreed, glancing around to where a couple were sitting a few paces away from them. “Whatever you need.”

When she turned back around, Cedric was regarding her thoughtfully. Somehow during her distraction, he had leant forward, propping his cheek upon his palm, his elbow resting on the table.

“Why do you keep looking around?” he asked, and Hermione stilled in her seat and fought to keep her neck straight.

“I don’t,” she protested.

“You do,” he countered without any heat. “Afraid to be seen with me?”

The question was so flippant, and yet it made Hermione cringe. “No, not that.”

“Well, what then?” Cedric asked, wiping his fingers on a napkin. “Are you in witness protection? Do you owe money to a shady character?”

Hermione tried to smile at his increasingly exuberant guesses, but her expression was too brittle to be believable. “No, it’s not any of that. It’s the opposite of what you…” Hermione trailed off. She hadn’t intended to admit that. Not at all.

_Damn Cedric_. It was all his fault. If she weren’t so bloody at ease while he was speaking, she would be able to remember how uncomfortable she was.

“You think _I_ would be embarrassed?” Cedric asked incredulously, and Hermione felt herself flush. She pushed her plate to the side. Suddenly the remaining piles of rice and fish looked claggy and metallic. She couldn’t face another bite.

“That doesn’t even make any sense. I invited you here.”

“Maybe I… I’m sorry... Now I’m embarrassed.”

Cedric stared down at the table, and Hermione could see his leg bouncing. “I think I’m… I’m trying pretty hard not to be offended actually,” he said. “I knew you weren’t… you didn’t,” he rubbed a hand over his face, and his frustration was evident. “Has anything I’ve said or done given you the impression that I’m that sort of person? That I think I should only have _certain_ people as my friends?”

“No,” Hermione replied quickly, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her. “Of course not, you’ve been… sorry I… I don’t think I even realised this was a sensitive issue for me until...”

Hermione slumped in on herself and tried to calm down. Her cheeks felt like they were radiating heat, and her vision was worryingly glassy.

“Do you want to… would you like to talk about it?” Cedric asked hesitantly.

Hermione pushed some hair off her face, it may have got in her eye line from time to time, but she was grateful for the cover it provided her just then. She wanted to leave. She had a fleeting thought that she could ask Cedric for his email and send him the rest of the questions to complete in his own time, but she pushed that away. He’d been _so kind_ to her, so open. He’d even spoken about his mum. Now she’d managed to almost offend him by not being able to keep her damn insecurities to herself.

“Draco Malfoy,” she said finally, pressing her tongue against her dry lips. Proper, eloquent words weren’t forming in her mind, so she thought it was best to blurt out what she could and hope for the best. “We went out last year, a few times.”

_Jesus, this was hard_. Hermione hadn’t admitted that to anyone other than Luna. Her ethereal friend was the only person she could bank on being able to listen without making comments or passing judgements. Ron, Harry and Ginny had always _hated_ him, almost from the first day they had all met. Malfoy came from money and made sure everyone knew about it. Draco’s bloodline was supposedly traceable back to Charles I - _descended from Kings_ , as he liked to say. The blond had been driven to school in a Bentley up until his father brought him his first Jag. He wasn’t old enough to drive it yet, but it became his new drop off vehicle.

Hermione had always hated him too, until last year. He’d started showing up in the library, at the same times as her. It had taken _weeks_ , but eventually, Draco had sat on the same table. He’d been hesitant and kind of sweet. He’d asked her questions about their coursework and things about her life outside of school.

“We erm… we had lunch first, and then a few dinners. I suppose it wasn’t much. Just… dating, or at least, that’s what I thought it was.”

Hindsight was twenty twenty, as the old saying went. It was also a cruel bitch in Hermione’s opinion, although the only person she held any anger for was herself. When she looked back now, she could see how Draco had carefully selected the places he took her. Places far off the beaten track where they were unlikely to be seen. After those first few meetings, he’d always come back to her house. They’d sit at the kitchen table doing homework together, while her parents worked late, until they’d give up on making notes and spend their time kissing. Then it was more than kissing, much more.

Hermione had never asked Draco why he hadn’t told his friends, and she certainly hadn’t told hers. But, Hermione realised now that she’d always expected that to be a temporary state of affairs—something they would do eventually, and together.

Hermione had told herself she would have been able to weather her friend’s disapproval because Draco had begun to mean so much to her. She had imagined endless scenarios of how the ‘reveal’ would go, each more elaborate than the last. Hermione had envisioned Draco standing next to her, holding her hand while she told her friends about them. She had seen Draco kissing her head while Ron stormed out, the image was so clear it almost felt real. The fabricated memories had hurt, and she looked back on them with so much scorn now. They were evidence of how stupid she had been.

“We’d erm…. we’d been hanging out for a while and then there was a ball at the end of the year. The summer formal. He went with Pansy Parkinson. I found out he’d asked her in the cafeteria. I hadn’t expected him to ask me but…”

“Hermione,” Cedric said, drawing her eyes up to him. She blinked away from the pity in his face. His hand reached across the table but then, he gripped its side before withdrawing back to his lap.

“Anyway, after that I had a bit of a rethink. I told Draco I didn’t want to see him anymore and he… he got quite upset. He said I _should_ have understood why he could never be seen with him publicly.”

Up until that point, Hermione had assumed no one knew, outside of her Draco and her mother but then, only a week after Draco had thrown an almighty fit after she wouldn’t let him into her house after school, she’d seen Blaise Zabini looking at her. Hermione had known by the glint in his eyes and the smirk on his lips that he knew all about it. He thought it was funny. He thought it was okay to laugh at her.

“I’m so sorry,” Cedric said at last, and he made to speak again, but Hermione knew his words would have felt like nails across an open wound.

“That’s why I was surprised,” Hermione interjected, feeling woefully like she was going to cry. “With the Saturday and the restaurant famous for its huge glass front and the seat in the window.”

“I… I understand, I think. I mean… I don’t understand what Malfoy was playing at, but I think I get how you feel. But… not everyone is going to be the same, or treat _you_ the same. You know that, right?”

“Sure,” Hermione said tightly and then straightened herself up. “Shall we go back to the questions?”

“If you like.”

-/-/-/-

Two cups of tea later, the lunch rush was long over, and the sky was beginning to lose its colour. Hermione managed to get through the last of her questions, feeling brave enough to try some of the more light-hearted things she had included as the mood at their little table improved.

As time wore on, and Cedric answered her questions with patience and good humour, Hermione stopped being worried that he would tell anyone. She trusted him not to do that to her.

“I’m sorry,” Hermione said as she noticed how late it had gotten. “I didn’t mean to take up your whole afternoon.”

The arrival of the bill prevented any response Cedric might have made.

“Shall we split it?” Hermione asked as she glanced over at the folded up receipt, but Cedric swiped it up into his hands.

“I said it was on me.”

“I know, but that was before you knew we’d be here for hours. It wasn’t just lunch, we had drinks and more snacks too.”

“I ate most of the snacks,” Cedric protested, which, although true, didn’t dissuade Hermione. She put one of her uncompromising looks on her face, one that would have been enough to get Harry or even Ginny to capitulate. Cedric, however, just raised his brow in challenge and fished his wallet out of his pocket.

“We can split it next time,” he replied with one of his smiles. It was the slight hesitation in his eyes that stopped Hermione in her tracks.

_Next time?_

“Can I take you home?”

Hermione didn’t bother to protest.

* * *

Hermione climbed into bed later that evening after twisting her hair into lumpy plaits and reading through her notes one last time.

The drive home had been uneventful and nearly silent, but not in an uncomfortable way. Cedric hadn’t had to ask for directions this time and so, lulled by the diminishing light and the smooth movement of the car, Hermione had nearly fallen asleep.

She hadn’t shut her eyes, but Cedric still had to draw her attention to the fact that they’d stopped. Hermione had expected him to tease her; instead, he gently nudged her shoulder and made sure she had all the things she needed. Before she had been able to get out of the car, Cedric had gotten out and made his way around the front to open her door. It had left them standing awkwardly facing each other.

Hermione had attempted to gather up all of her courage and say _something,_ but after what felt like a lifetime of just standing there, Cedric mumbled something under his breath and lurched forward, wrapping his arms around her and pulling Hermione into his chest.

His jumper had been softer than it looked and he smelled _amazing_.

All too soon, they were apart again, and she was sure she could have generated power from the heat in her face. Hermione thought she had managed to say thank you and goodbye, without looking like a complete idiot, but it wasn’t a certainty.

Cedric had waved her off with salute and waited - once again - for her front door to close behind her before driving off.

Hermione turned off her side light and stared up at her ceiling in the darkness. She remembered the tips of Cedric’s ears going pink and the crinkles around his eyes as he told her the story of the first match he played with the captain’s armband. He’d said that he’d felt the pressure of it against his skin, and how silly it was that a slim stretch of black elastic symbolised all he had strived for, for all that time.

Hermione blinked and then shut her eyes as she felt a heavy feeling settle on her chest.

_Fuck!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _A/N: Sorry for the delay. A ridiculously long chapter considering the rest in this story but I didn’t think it would work cutting it in half. In the next chapter, a few more students may notice our jock/nerd match up, and we have a guest appearance from Colin and his ever-present camera._


	6. Chapter Six

Hermione found herself distracted on Monday, which was far from her usual state of existence. As a general rule, unlike most of the student population, Monday's were Hermione's best day of the week. She had a homework planner ready to fill, a bag full of textbooks and three open slots for extended library sessions. In short, it was all ahead of her.

Yet this week, she was… preoccupied, so preoccupied in fact that she had spent the first ten minutes of Miss McGonagall's advanced maths class with her physics textbook open on the desk. Harry had nudged her until Hermione realised her mistake, giving her an indulgent grin before going back to frowning over the current equation. Harry hadn't thought it was a big deal, but it was a monumental lapse in awareness to Hermione. She just couldn't concentrate.

When her head wasn't swimming with remembrances from the weekend, Hermione found herself idly running over the first few paragraphs she had managed to draft for the article. So far, she had worked on it for six hours, and she had twelve sentences to show for it. And that wasn't the only problem; the meagre words she had managed to cobble together were far from inspiring stuff.

By some miracle, Hermione managed to get through her morning classes without significant incident. Then she hurriedly ate a sandwich with Ron and Ginny before going to meet with Colin Creevey. Hermione and her newspaper 'colleague' both had half an hour at lunchtime free, and Colin had been predictably enthusiastic about helping her.

Coming in from the cold and throwing away her rubbish from lunch, Hermione stopped at her locker to exchange her textbooks - she knew she wouldn't get another chance before afternoon classes. She was about to lock the door when she felt a presence on either side of her, hovering just behind her shoulders.

Hermione was surprised when she whirled around to find Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil blocking her path. Neither girl had ever made a habit of seeking her out. They were wearing matching denim jackets instead of the school blazers, and they had quilted red handbags embroidered with their initials rather than satchels.

Hermione cocked her head to the side and regarded them blankly, making sure to press her lips together and raise her chin determinedly.

"Granger," Parvati greeted in something approaching a polite tone of voice. Hermione nodded in response, pleased that she had stopped herself from speaking first. Parvati could always be relied upon to be semi-nice, so Hermione tried to do the same. Lavender Brown, on the other hand….

"What's going on with you and Cedric Diggory?" Lavender demanded, crossing her arms and tapping her impractical shoe clad foot. The blonde flicked her hair so hard her thick plait switched shoulders and Hermione could see the red and gold ribbon she had woven through it.

Lavender always went to extraordinary lengths to 'perfect' her appearance. To someone like Hermione, who could never quite remember if she had brushed her hair, it was baffling. Yet, the overall effect of the ribbons plaited through Lavender's, admittedly rather lovely hair, was quite pretty. Hermione might have even thought about complimenting her if Lavender wasn't such a bitch.

"What?" Hermione responded, stepping away from her locker and impatiently pocketing her keys.

Lavender's brow pinched. "It's a straightforward question," she snapped. "You're always going on and on about how intelligent you are, Granger, surely you understand it?"

"Of course I understand it," Hermione replied dryly. "What I don't understand is why you're asking me?"

They had been assigned to the same form class in year seven and had been the bane of Hermione's existence since almost the first day. Or, they would have been, if Hermione ever bothered to think about them once they were out of her line of sight.

"Because you were seen together," Lavender revealed smugly, and Hermione felt her heart skip faster in her chest.

"Very helpful Lavender," she taunted, pleased at how level her voice sounded. "Though it's not exactly an amazing feat, is it? I'm standing with you, even though I'm sure we'd both rather be anywhere else in the world. We do all go to the same school."

"Padma saw you on Saturday," Parvati interjected, a hint of a smile pulling at her lips. "She said you were getting into Cedric's car."

Oh.

Oh.

Well that was harder to explain.

Hermione was torn between disassembling and just telling the girls the truth. A wicked part of her would love to watch Lavender's reaction to hearing Cedric had invited her to lunch. Though, if she did that, it would be around the school in no time, then she'd likely have a few more problems. Not least that Cedric could think that Hermione was making up rumours about them.

"Well?" Lavender demanded sharply, and Hermione felt her ire peak in return. How dare this jumped up little cow demand anything of her? Who was she to come over and ask questions like she had a right to…

"Hermione?"

Hermione’s thoughts abruptly skidded to a halt. The surprisingly deep voice indicating the appearance of the boy in question broke apart the cluster of girls, and Hermione didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned that he had found her right at that moment.

"Hi," Cedric greeted warmly, looking at her over Parvati's head. He raised an eyebrow, subtly glancing at her audience and Hermione waved in response.

"Aren't we supposed to be meeting now?" he asked. He looked down at his watch, and Hermione mumbled her accord and stepped towards him. Parvati failed to stifle a gasp and Lavender - after a moment's indecision - took a step towards Cedric with determination clear on her every feature, though, whatever she was going to try was forestalled by Cedric putting his hand out in front of him.

"Hello, Violet, isn't it?" he said kindly as Lavender's expression became vacant. She mechanically offered him her manicured hand.

Cedric shook it vigorously, before letting go and the blonde's arm dropped limply to her side.

"Actually, it's Lavender… Lavender Brown," she corrected, and Cedric dramatically winced.

Hermione had seen Cedric look genuinely pained and embarrassed. For the whole ten minutes his dad had been in the restaurant he had been braced and knotted with discomfort. It was an expression that she hoped never to see on his face again. Suffering of any kind somehow looked wrong on a person as open as Cedric.

Hermione glanced at him from the corner of her eye and detected no real sign of concern in his face. Beyond the very deliberate looking grimace he had twisted his mouth into. Hermione scuffed the toe of her shoe on the laminated floor and looked down to hide her smile.

"Sorry about that," Cedric replied bashfully. "Terrible with names. It must be all those headers I do in training. If you'll excuse us?" he said brightly, then placed a hand on Hermione's shoulder, turning her in the other direction as if she was an articulated doll. "Come on, Hermione, we shouldn't keep Colin waiting."

Hermione pulled her bag in front of her torso and tried to block out the loud whispers that followed them. There was no doubt in her mind that Lavender would be experiencing a minor cardiac event after witnessing that scene. She gripped her bag tighter as she heard a muffled squeal and then Hermione fell into step beside Cedric, grateful that he seemed to be able to modify his stride without her asking, so she didn't have to skip to keep up.

"Interrupting something?" Cedric asked as they turned a corner and Hermione shook her head.

“No, just some girls from my form asking about my weekend,” she replied evasively, and Cedric blew out a harsh breath that ended on a mirthless chuckle.

“You’re a terrible liar. You know that, right?”

Hermione smiled despite herself. "I know, but for the record, so are you."

"Excuse me?" Cedric exclaimed, pressing a hand to his chest with mock offence. "What lie have I told in your presence."

"You know her name," Hermione accused, pointing a finger at him. "Everyone knows Lavender Brown."

Cedric's eyes sparkled though he was trying his best to keep a straight face. "I don't know what you mean," he said finally.

They came to the door that separated the maths department from humanities, and Cedric quickened his step to reach it before her and then held the door open, standing back so Hermione could go past.

Hermione stared up at him narrowing her eyes and biting her lip. "You're not as nice as people say you are," she declared primly, moving under his stretched out arm.

Cedric let the door slam shut behind them and scampered after her. "People say I'm nice?" he replied teasingly, and Hermione hit his arm. "I'm pretty sure the student paper would frown on violence being used to cajole interviewees."

"I wouldn't know," Hermione replied with a shrug, “I never read the handbook.”

"Can I ask you a question?" she asked as they approached their designated classroom. She felt a bit braver than she had previously, mainly as there was no one else around. Admittedly, she’d also been helped along by Cedric's rescue mission earlier on.

Hermione reached into her pocket to find the required key and fiddled with it between her fingers while she listened to the sound of their steps. One of the perks of being an academically standout student with (an almost) immaculate record, was that she could occasionally book classrooms for her own use without requiring supervision.

"Sure," Cedric replied, watching her curiously. "That's kind of what we're doing at the moment, isn't it?"

"No… I mean, yes we are, but this would be a… a personal question," Hermione answered with a little cough.

"Now I'm intrigued," Cedric said with a grin. "Ask away."

"When I first met you..."

"When you were skulking around outside the boy's locker room?" Cedric interjected.

"Thank you for that," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "When I told you about the article you mentioned you had thought Cho would be doing the interview."

"I erm…" Cedric responded, palming the straps hanging from his backpack. "I had heard Cho was going to be assigned."

"I see." Hermione stared straight ahead and tried to keep her voice even. "I wondered if there was… if you were disappointed that I wasn't…"

"We're not together," Cedric replied quickly. "Cho and me, I mean. We haven't been for a long time. The break up was… okay. We're even friends now… sort of. It just wasn't working out anymore."

"Oh… So you hadn't requested she do it?" Hermione managed to stumble out. His response had been more than she had expected to get, and the words were still dancing in front of her eyes, waiting for her to figure them out and sort them.

"No… I erm… I didn't ask for Cho to do it."

"Oh," Hermione responded quietly. "Okay, then."

-/-/-/-

After they reached the classroom Hermione had booked with an especially miserable Umbridge, Cedric went off to change and Colin - who had been waiting for them with barely concealed excitement - rushed around the room, hurriedly explaining bits of kit with phenomenal speed.

Hermione tried her very best to remain attentive to Colin, but in all honesty, listening or not, she barely comprehended half of it. She'd had a history lecture that morning on the possible translations of ancient runes, and frankly, if that hadn't managed to grab her attention, Colin had no hope.

Colin had set up three different cameras from the many currently in his possession and was explaining to Hermione the various effects he could achieve with each and the 'right light'. Hermione hoped she was nodding in something approaching the right places. Unfortunately, much of the technical aspect went over her head and the creative side held little interest, which, she supposed, was precisely why she needed Colin there today.

She had briefly considered doing the pictures herself to save the extra hassle, but she knew that wouldn’t fly. Justin would declare them ‘unfit for purpose’, and no doubt scrapped her entire article out of hand. Hermione would probably not have survived asking Cedric to do it let alone having them both together in a room, doing something that felt strangely intimate, without Colin as a buffer.

Hermione found a seat at the side of the room and got herself out of the way while Colin set up a screen that cleverly obscured the fact they were actually in a dusty classroom and not in a professional studio.

"I can't believe we're taking pictures of Cedric Diggory," Colin enthused. He was apparently happy with the first set up as he had stopped fiddling with the tripod he positioned to the left of the screen.

"I know, aren't we lucky," Hermione replied dryly as she leafed through some of the photos Colin had pulled together as potential composition references.

Despite her carefully constructed nonchalance, Hermione had found herself pondering what the pictures might turn out like since she had sent a note to Colin asking if he could do them. She was not unaware that most readers would spend more time looking at the pictures of Cedric than reading her - much laboured over - words, but Hermione couldn't find it within herself to be annoyed.

"Seriously, Hermione, he's going to be a big star one day," Colin said, sounding as close scolding as he ever did. "And I'll be the first photographer to capture him, me, little Colin Creevey."

Hermione couldn’t help but smile. Generally speaking, overt enthusiasm for things she didn’t really understand or care for tended to irk her, but it was impossible to get annoyed at Colin. A school like Hogwarts wasn’t easy for people like them, and she had never really considered how similar their backgrounds were. They were both middle class, not exactly from money but far from impoverished. Neither of them had a ‘name’ or any connections, but they were both driven to find their own way in the world, in their different ways. In a million other institutions, they would have been wholly unremarkable, yet notable for their achievements. Here, they were out of place, banded together for their ‘otherness’ because their families didn’t ‘summer’ in exotic locales or employee staff, and they were both inherently terrible at any sport they happened to try.

"You're going to do a great job Colin, I have complete faith in you," Hermione said earnestly, and Colin beamed as his cheeks turned pink.

"I'll do my best," he mumbled but then collected himself before walking over and pointing out a few of his more favoured suggestions.

Cedric walked through the door as Hermione had finally convinced Colin that having the football team’s captain lie on the floor as he shot pictures from above was a bad idea. Hermione wasn’t averse to pushing the envelope from time to time, but she felt that was probably a little… salacious for a school publication.

Cedric was wearing his team outfit, not the kit he wore on match days but the smarter set they had for when they were on the benches or attending formal events. The trousers were a sort of smart tracksuit bottom, if such a thing existed, paired with a fancier version of his standard football jumper. It had a funnel neck, a centre zip and a large H embroidered on the front, but, most eye-catching, it was all in a ridiculous shade of canary yellow that Hermione had still not become desensitised to in all her years at Hogwarts.

"I can't believe our school colour is yellow," Hermione sighed. The girls that lived opposite her went to the local comprehensive, and their school's colours were navy and sage green. It looked incredibly elegant in comparison.

"Or rather, you can't believe I look this good in it," Cedric replied with a grin and dropped his bag on the floor. Hermione made a show of shaking her head in exasperation and then turned away.

She didn't hear Cedric when he approached, so she jumped when he placed one of his large hands on her lower back. It rested just above her waistband and made her so aware of herself, Hermione found herself almost rising onto her toes inside her shoes.

Colin was still beavering away with lens options - now that he had seen Cedric's outfit he wanted to make adjustments - and he wasn't looking in their direction. Even if he had been, from Colin's vantage point, it would just look like Cedric was leaning over Hermione to glance at the photos carefully arranged on the side table.

"It looks good on you too," Cedric murmured, and his words were so soft it was as if Hermione only registered them by the feel the air made against her ear. Hermione's back stiffened, and Cedric's hand pressed more firmly against her spine. She couldn't be sure if she'd instinctively backed into him, or if Cedric had been the one to move.

"I've seen you in the winter uniform," he explained. "Though you seem to insist on a jumper that's far too big for you."

"Not mine," she replied, pushing the words out of her suddenly parched throat. Hermione had never been so aware of her back before. "Usually Harry's. He has about fifteen jumpers dotted around, and I always leave mine at home."

Cedric chuckled, and the warmth in his tone melted her reserve and her body. Hermione felt her joints roll and lose that locking feeling that made her feel like a brittle statue made of old stone.

"I didn't have you down as forgetful," he admitted, and Hermione smiled. She wondered if he could see it from his place behind her. She hoped so.

"Not forgetful so much as my brain sees it as non-important, so it just doesn't register," Hermione explained and probably because the room was so still she was convinced she could feel Cedric nodding behind her.

"Well, if you're ever cold or… you know, whatever, I've always got extra stuff here… because of training and… stuff. If you want."

Cedric's hand flexed against her back, and then he pulled away, and Hermione blew out a breath she wasn't sure was fueled by disappointment or relief.

"Thank you," she said, turning just enough so they could lock eyes. "I'll...

"Right, Cedric," Colin interrupted from the other side of the room, and Cedric and Hermione instantly took a step apart. "I'm ready for you."

-/-/-/-

Hermione settled herself against the wall by the door as Colin directed Cedric in a series of, thankfully predictable, yet no less affecting, shots. It should have come as no surprise that Cedric was photogenic. Still, Hermione found herself struck by his ease in working with Colin and how his eyes seemed to smile even in the moments between camera clicks, when he was being asked to move or hold a position with directions that sounded like gobbledygook to Hermione.

In the end, it took less than ten minutes, and Colin was satisfied. The younger boy reeled off a schpiel of thanks that Cedric did his best to halt, several times, and then Hermione re-inserted herself into proceedings to see if she could be of any help. Colin waved her off when she offered to pack down his screen, and Hermione understood his clenched teeth and fists even though he did his best to hide them. She'd occasionally get that way herself when anyone tried to manhandle (or as Luna would describe it, 'touch') one of her own costly, and highly valued, reference books.

"You need any more from me?" Cedric asked as Hermione relegated herself to packing up her bits and pieces and staying out of their photographers' way.

"I'm sorry?"

"With the article," Cedric qualified. "Any more questions?"

"No, I think I'm finished with you now," Hermione replied with a smile, biting her lip when she remembered how much of his time she had taken up on Saturday. Not that he’d complained. Quite the opposite in fact.

She'd expected Cedric to smile in return - it seemed like a reflex of his - instead, he looked thoughtful. "Okay," he said at last. "Maybe you don't have any more questions, but it can't hurt to have more… insight… can it?"

Hermione's eyebrows rose. She looked at the hand that was holding up his bag, the hand that had been on her back less than half an hour ago. The hand she could still feel. She wanted to tell Cedric she had so much information it felt like it was seeping out of her pores.

"Lunch?" Cedric asked, and Hermione's heart sped up. Would he ever stop surprising her?

"I already ate," she replied numbly.

"Do you want to sit with me while I have mine? I'll buy you a cuppa."

It was on the tip of Hermione's tongue to say no and fabricate some excuse, but she knew she wouldn't be anything approaching convincing. The room felt small with him standing so close to her and yet it was pleasant, in a suffocating kind of way. Like she had pulled a duvet too tight around her shoulders.

"Okay," Hermione replied as bravely as she could. Then she hid most of her face behind a book she was making a show of picking up to take with her.

"Okay," Cedric repeated, and then he nodded and rocked on his heels. Colin approached before he could say anything else. Once again reminding them they weren't alone in the room.

"Creevey, you in?" Cedric asked with all the ease Hermione had come to expect of him, and it made Colin stop in his tracks. "Lunch, in the cafeteria," Cedric explained. The younger boy looked vaguely faint.

Colin dropped the last unpacked camera into its box without taking his astonished eyes off Cedric's face. His actions were probably more careless than usual, and Hermione winced at the sound of the paper scrunching as he hastily covered the components.

"Lunch, with you… in the cafeteria?" Colin eventually asked, and Cedric looked at him with a puzzled expression that Hermione thought made him look adorable.

"Yeah?" Cedric said, very clearly not understanding why Colin was asking.

"I've got a… another thing," Colin replied as his shoulders slumped. It was not hard to deduce that Colin felt painfully torn. "I'm meeting up with the photography club, we're deciding on who to invite for our guest lecture… I really… I can't miss it."

"No worries," Cedric said with a shrug. "Raincheck, yeah?"

"Yes," Colin replied, nodding enthusiastically. "Yes, that would be great… really great. Thanks Cedric."

"Awesome. Looking forward to seeing how the pics turn out. Thanks for giving up part of your lunch break mate."

Cedric turned to Hermione as she placed her bag on her shoulder and gestured for her to walk in front of him. Hermione held her breath as she moved, bracing herself lest he put his hands on her again, but Cedric merely grabbed the door and then they were back in the corridor.

Hermione was struck by the feeling that it would have been an effortless endeavour to convince herself that the last twenty minutes were the product of an overactive imagination and a distracted mind, if it wasn't for the perpetually sunny, lean, attractive football star still inexplicably walking next to her.

"Come on," Cedric commanded softly, "I'm starving. I should have thought to eat something before, but history ran over. I thought Creevey was going to tell me off for being a grump."

Hermione came to an abrupt stop, and Cedric halted a moment later.

"What?" he asked with an urgency Hermione was too befuddled to comprehend. "Is everything… are you feeling okay?"

"This is you in a bad mood?" Hermione said, her tone almost accusatory. She didn't know whether to poke him in the chest or burst out laughing.

"Yeah," Cedric said, brushing a hand up the back of his neck and colouring slightly. "Sorry, it's been a long morning and I..."

"Jesus, Cedric," Hermione exclaimed, covering her eyes with her hands as a few rouge chuckles burst through her fingers. "You could have fooled me."

"Really?" he said, looking all too pleased with himself. "I thought you were going to interrogate me for being quiet."

Hermione guffawed. "I didn't even notice. I was too busy being completely struck by how lovely you were to Colin. People aren't nice to him, you know, not even me most of the time. If this is you in a bad mood, what the hell are you like when you're really happy?"

"You tell me?" Cedric replied and ducked his head. "What was I like on Saturday?"

Blood rushed to Hermione's head so fast it was as if she had been turned upside down and violently shaken.

"C'mon," Cedric said again, softer this time. "I'll get you a cup of tea. You look like you could do with a sit down."

Hermione managed to nod as she followed after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Happy new year lovelies! May this year be uneventful bliss. In the next chapter - Hermione goes to the cafeteria :)


	7. Chapter Seven

When they entered the cafeteria ten minutes later - Cedric brightly and Hermione with great reluctance - Hermione was pleased to find that the student numbers were beginning to thin out. Cedric had insisted they stop on the way so he could change back into his uniform, even though _he_ would have gotten away with wearing his kit to classes.

Hermione trailed after him as Cedric wasted no time grabbing a tray and joining the diminished line before heartily filling his plate. His portion sizes seemed far bigger than any Hermione had ever received (when she wasn’t bringing sandwiches from home). However, she imagined the unfamiliar generosity was down to Cedric’s winning smile, laid back demeanour and that he greeted all of the dinner ladies by name. They oohed and awed over him from under their hairnets and starched hats and told him he was a ‘sweet boy’ while Hermione rolled her eyes and tried not to smile.

She did her best to ‘blend in’ while Cedric was on a charm offensive, and stopped herself from looking around at the clusters of students. Hermione rarely came into the cafeteria and the noise - layer upon layer of scuffs and chomps under laughs and taunts - was almost overwhelming.

Lunch ran for ninety minutes at Hogwarts, something of an oddity when compared to other schools in the area. The rationale was that it gave students more time to complete assignments or the extracurricular activities that Hogwarts so valued, inside of the school day. Hermione usually had a quick lunch with Harry, Ron and whoever else was around at the beginning of the slot and then headed off to the library or one of her various clubs and societies.

But not today.

While she was woolgathering, Cedric walked over to the next station and Hermione scampered after him while trying to look ‘casual’. She was pretty sure she looked as awkward as ever. It would help if she could decide _what_ she was trying to achieve. Hermione was torn between keeping a suitable distance and standing so close behind Cedric that there was a chance other people wouldn’t see her.

As promised, Cedric picked her up a cup of tea and laughed when she selected one of the complicated-sounding herbal infusions that the school had started selling at the beginning of term. They were delicious, fruity but most importantly to Hermione, free of caffeine. She could still remember the shakes she had for three days following last year’s exams after she’d existed on coffee, Pro Plus and Red Bull for a month. She’d promised her parents she would try to avoid those things in the future. Hermione was determined to try; sometimes, she still thought she could taste the clawing sweetness on the back of her tongue.

Cedric paid, exchanging more happy chat with the cashier and then gestured with his overloaded tray for them to find a seat.

As they crossed the large room, Hermione spied Blaise Zabini holding court and leaning back in his chair like he was dining al fresco on the french riviera. The fashion-forward student had a large group around him because, of course he did. Hermione saw Blaises’ eyebrows raise as she walked past, but she did her best to pretend she hadn’t seen him, even though she felt his eyes on her back as she followed Cedric through the scattered tables.

“Everything alright?” Cedric asked, and Hermione managed to nod.

“Yes,” she lied, succinctly if not convincingly. “Everything’s fine. Where are we going?”

“To sit,” Cedric said with a roll of his eyes and Hermione had the sudden realisation that being on the other side of the expression she so favoured was pretty annoying.

Hermione’s anxiety built as they moved past scores of deserted tables and got closer and closer to the floor to ceiling windows that lined the back of the large space. Only a few groups sat in that area, and none of them were ones Hermione had ever imagined she had admittance to.

“With the football team?” she asked as she spied some familiar faces sitting over two tables littered with plates and planners.

“With _my friends_ ,” Cedric clarified pointedly. Hermione’s feet stuttered and protested, but she kept on walking. The only thing more embarrassing than what was about to happen would have been turning on her heel and running away. She was glad Cedric had insisted on putting her drink on his tray, she would have probably dropped it by now, either through mounting nerves or as a cover to get out of there.

Cedric looked down at her and sighed. “If we sit together, _just us_ , we are never going to be left alone.”

Hermione knew that was true, but it didn’t ease the swashing feeling in her stomach, it was like her intestines had just been put on a spin dry.

“It might even be useful,” Cedric pressed with enthusiasm, and Hermione grimaced.

“To whom?” she asked archly, and Cedric took a step closer.

“They’re not going to be… mean,” he intoned, and Hermione crossed her arms defensively.

“So you say, they _like_ you.”

As they approached what Hermione was internally calling ‘certain doom’, she tried to relax her features so as not to resemble a petulant toddler being dragged away from soft play.

“Everyone, this is Hermione,” Cedric said, needlessly gesturing towards her. She managed a wave she was sure looked every bit as awkward as she felt. “Hermione this is Cassius Warrington, Adrian Pucey, Terry Boot and Eddie Carmichael.”

“Hi,” she said as their greetings were called back, all overlapping each other.

Cedric nodded in the direction of the bench seat closest to them, and Hermione folded herself down with as much grace as she was capable of achieving. Cedric followed, bunching up next to her until their thighs were pressed together - sealing their contact from hip to knee. Hermione rushed to grab her tea before Cedric could offer, and took a huge sip that almost burnt the taste buds off her tongue before lancing her throat. Hermione managed to stifle her pained whimper and set the cup back down. She hoped the pink in her cheeks would be attributed to the steam pouring off her drink rather than her certainty that she could feel Cedric’s pulse against her knee cap.

“So, you’re interviewing Ced for the school paper?”

Hermione turned towards Adrian Pucey, a tall boy who’s limbs always looked slightly too long for him to adequately manage. He was gazing at her contemplatively. She winced at his shortening of Cedric’s name, but she - wisely - said nothing. Ron and Harry called her Mione, after all.

“Yes,” she confirmed easily, and she looked up at Cedric from under her lashes. She was somewhat surprised that he had mentioned it to them, given his dad hadn’t had a clue.

“How’s it going?”

“Okay,” Hermione replied softly. Her words were deliberately vague, but only because she had nothing concrete she could say. It was going both exceptionally well and exceptionally badly, all at the same time. Cedric was _pressed_ up against her for the second time in under an hour. His proximity was chasing a current through her right arm, but she only had half a page of the article to show for her efforts.

_Swings and roundabouts._

“I’d say it was going better than okay,” Terry interjected bitterly. “I wish _my_ interview had come with lunch at Soya. Didn’t even get a hint of a sandwich.”

“Oh well, erm….” Hermione began, but Eddie cut off by pushing his plate away and knocking Terry on the shoulder.

“Maybe they’ve got more budget now?”

“Maybe they’ve always had it,” Cassius said, not taking his eyes off Hermione. She fidgeted under his gaze. “They just didn’t want to spend it on you.”

“Oi fuck off, I was _fundamental_ to the team last year.”

“More than we can say for you now,” Cedric said good-naturedly which was followed by more bantering back and forth.

At first, Hermione baulked at the aggressive teasing - often followed up with shoves - but once she settled into it, she realised the boys surrounding her were not that much different to her classmates. Though the table manners were undoubtedly better, Terry had even moved his roulade out of the way before he punched Eddie in the arm.

Once she finished her tea, Hermione found it easier to contribute to proceedings now and again, and it would appear that Cedric had been correct, none of them were anything but pleasant. Some more than others, but no one was outright rude.

After a while, talk turned to their training session tomorrow, and through force of habit, Hermione zoned out as she munched on a couple of breadsticks that Cedric had pushed her way.

There weren’t many people left in the cafeteria at that time, though Blaises’ little gang were still there. Hermione’s eyes bounced over him quickly, and unfortunately, her gaze landed directly on Draco Malfoy, which was just her luck. Though it was a wonder Hermione recognised him after such a fleeting look.

Draco was pale… no… more than that, his skin was almost sallow under the artificial lights and as well as heavy bags under his eyes she could see faint bruising on the side of his cheek. She had never seen him look so bad. The Draco Malfoy she knew was never in public with so much as a single hair out of place.

If Blaise was relaxed elegance, Draco was the uptight version. He was a meticulous dresser who took ironing his uniform to the nth degree. Or rather, he instructed his housekeeper to, Draco didn’t do those kinds of things for himself.

“Do you know what happened to Malfoy?” she asked Cedric, and in her distraction, she didn’t notice that the conversation around them faltered.

“Hmmm,” Cedric muttered in response, staring very intently at the paltry remains of his salad.

“He looks like he’s been kicked down a flight of stairs,” Hermione observed staring at Cedric’s profile. His jaw ticked but otherwise he made no move to answer her.

Cassius stifled a laugh, and Hermione’s head snapped towards him.

“He had a... tough training session yesterday,” he explained with raised eyebrows as if Hermione should instantly know what that meant.

“Yesterday?”

“Yep,” Cassius said, pushing some curls off his brow. “The cross teams session got moved to the weekend because of exams. We couldn’t fit it in the school week.”

“Oh,” Hermione replied with a nod. She hadn’t remembered Ron or Harry mentioning anything but then, why would they?

Under Cedric’s leadership, the first team made a point of getting all the players from all years and teams together once a month. Draco was on the reserve team with Harry and Ron. None of them were happy about it.

“What happened?” she pressed. Cedric continued to worry a limp bit of lettuce with his fork, but his cheeks darkened.

“Cedric?” she said, more insistently this time, and he finally looked at her. His face looked different, Hermione thought. He appeared discomforted. She had seen enough of that expression before to recognise it, but his eyes were harder. This wasn’t embarrassment. It was almost defiant, as if he was daring her to challenge him.

The intense look they shared seemed to last a moment too long, and then there was a commotion further down the table.

“Pay up,” Cassius insisted, nudging Adrian in the ribs while he stared at the by-play between Hermione and Cedric and grinned. The sterner looking boy did not seem impressed in the slightest.

“Fucks sake Warrington, don’t even know why you play football, you should go to Vegas instead. Try your luck counting cards or maybe you could give me Wednesday’s lotto numbers?”

Cassius laughed and then Adrian passed him a tenner. “It’s always a girl,” he murmured to Adrian, but it was just loud enough for Hermione to hear him. She wasn’t sure if that had been deliberate.

“What did you do?” Hermione intoned. She was so flush she felt almost breathless, but the attention was off them now (Terry had wagered he could fit eight mini sausage rolls in his mouth), and she was determined to get an answer.

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” Cedric replied petulantly, and Hermione narrowed her eyes until he sighed.

“Flint turned up to training,” he said eventually, dropping his voice till he was sure only Hermione would be able to hear him. “He’s back home from Bootcamp, and he wanted to drop in on the session to see how things were going. More like seeing how I’m fucking up his legacy, but in any case, he was there.”

“Okay,” Hermione said, drawing out the word, and filing away Cedric’s bitterness towards Flint to consider later. “But I don’t see-”

“I volunteered Malfoy to guard him,” Cedric admitted as if he was spitting the words out.

Hermione remembered Marcus Flint. He wasn’t an easy person to forget. He’d left the school a year before and had been a highly unpopular captain for two years. Anyone that challenged his methods was told that Flint got results, but his methods were the polar opposite of Cedric’s. Fred had once come back from what was supposed to be a friendly match with teeth marks on his upper arm during Flint’s reign. The crescent-shaped patterns had bruised terribly, and he’d worn the reminder of being paired with the hard-headed player for well over a week.

Hermione glanced back over at Draco. His lips were pursed, indicating his displeasure. She could only imagine how pissed off he had been.

“For what reason?” Hermione asked. Cedric’s hands tensed on his legs and Hermione blinked.

“You _know_ why,” Cedric breathed out while looking at the floor, and Hermione stilled. She felt a chill run up her spine as clearly as a hand, and her tongue felt too large in her mouth. He hadn’t exactly been subtle, Hermione supposed, and yet his words still shocked her.

Cedric was a physical person, he’d gotten close to her more than once. But as much as Hermione had felt the truth in his expressions, it wasn’t a language she easily interpreted and it was one she trusted even less since she had been burnt before.

Words though, she understood words and precise actions - like sitting her with his friends and feeling like he had to defend her honour.

Part of her wanted to be mad at Cedric. She was very capable of fighting her own battles. But he was just so bloody noble. She imagined he couldn’t have stopped himself if he tried.

“Thank you,” Hermione offered eventually, in words as soft as his had been. Neither of them said anything else until the boys around them started packing their stuff up and heading out.

“Where you off to now?” Cedric asked as Eddie made a motion towards him.

“Library,” Hermione replied absently, insanely grateful to have some time to decompress and work out what the hell was going on in her head. “I’ve got a free period.”

“Alright for some,” Cedric said, and he got to his feet. “So, I suppose I’ll… I’ll see you around?”

Hermione drummed her fingers on the side of the table and wet her lips. “I erm… I could come to training tomorrow. Once I’ve finished with the paper meeting?”

Cedric’s brow furrowed as he bussed his tray. “I thought you didn’t have any more questions.”

He wasn’t looking at her; he was too focused on a stubborn wrapper that wouldn’t release into the bin. Maybe the lack of eye contact made her feel brave, or perhaps it was Cedric himself. Either way, Hermione thought she might have been ready to take a leap, even if it was a small one.

“I… not for the article,” Hermione clarified with a crack in her voice as she scrunched her fingers. “Just… to come and watch.”

Cedric dropped the tray down on top of the pile with a clatter and shouldered his bag as a grin slowly drifted across his face.

“Yeah, I… I would... that would be good,” Cedric said. “If you wait till I’m finished I’ll take you home after, okay?”

“Okay,” Hermione agreed, already edging towards the other exit. “I’ll see you then.”

“See you then, Hermione,” Cedric replied and then turned around and jogged to catch up with his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovelies! I hope you are all well, sorry for the delay with this one but what a year this month has been! Stay safe x


End file.
